


Taking the Scenic Route

by shortystylee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A Decade of Bad Timing, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Ben Solo's Teen Angst, Ben and Rey's Excellent Adventure, Childhood Friends, F/M, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Fluff, Hey look the rating changed, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Mutual Pining, Rey is great at peer pressure, Road Trips, The Falcon is an RV, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 21:36:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16167377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortystylee/pseuds/shortystylee
Summary: When Ben receives his family's old RV in his father's will, he decides to sell it - it's full of memories he doesn't need. But there's... problems. He has to get it to California without it breaking down, and that's where Rey comes in as road trip companion/mechanic.That's how he finds himself driving cross country with his best friend, who he's head over heels for, and oh, it's the first time they've both been single at the same time since god knows when.This will go great, he thinks. I can totally be cool about this.





	1. Chapter 1

To say that Ben is surprised that his father left him the Falcon is the understatement of the century. Oh sure, he knew he was bound to get some weird items passed down to him when they finally got around to meeting with the lawyer and going through the will - Han Solo was a… collector, after all. There’s the normal items, the house and the overwhelming majority of everything goes to Leia, as if they even needed to say that, and for Ben there’s some inheritance and quirky odds and ends. His expectation was to get some Grateful Dead and Foghat albums, maybe that pair of cowboy boots he’d loved that Ben never quite understood. 

_ We live in Wisconsin, Dad, not Amarillo. _

_ Plenty of cows just outside of Madison, kid. _

In the end, he gets the albums, the boots - which are actually his size, and the Falcon. Part of him wishes it was a real falcon.

It’s not. 

It’s a 1976 Winnebago Brave RV. The outside is painted cream, burnt orange, and brown, a classic mid-70s palette, with the signature W on each side. Inside, there’s green carpeting on the floors, avocado countertops, and so much brown and green itchy fabric everywhere. It looks like the worst parts of The Brady Bunch and That 70s Show houses had a baby and then slapped it on top of four wheels and a Dodge engine. 

He half expects Red Forman to walk out and start yelling about something. 

When he picks it up from his parent’s house that evening, he’s honestly astounded that the engine turns over. Ben hasn’t driven it since he was eighteen, the summer between high school and college, the last summer he took a road trip in it. It maneuvers just the way he remembers it, somewhere between a Mack truck and an army tank.  _ Good thing I don’t need to make any u-turns to get home. Turning radius on this beast would have me doing a five-point turn in the middle of a goddamn intersection. _

He hates the way it looks in his driveway. The embodiment of his teen angst parked beside his house, taking up so much room that it forces him to park his own car in the street. It does nothing but remind him of summer vacations spent driving around the country, stuck in that small space with his parents and Rey.

_ Rey.  _

_ Why didn’t she get the Falcon? She’d loved that thing as much as dad. _

Ben mulls on what to do with it for a day or two, since he’s not about to take advantage of his summer vacation and spend days hoofing it around the country in it. It gets horrible gas mileage, and he does have  _ some  _ semblance of a social life.  _ Not like I wanna have some amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty style adventure anyways. _

So he decides the only appropriate course of action is to sell it. He sees tons of RVs on 94 when he drives back and forth to Milwaukee, it makes sense that there’s the market out there for 1976 on wheels somewhere.

Two weeks later, he finds that market. Or well, he finds a buyer. Googling led Ben to an online RV forum with a buy and sell page, a place where, not even in his wildest dreams, he thought he’d find himself posting.  _ At least I’m selling, not buying, _ he rationalizes. 

The buyer is in Anaheim, clear across the country from Wisconsin, but for some unimaginable reason he wants it bad enough to pay for the vehicle  _ and _ Ben’s gas  _ and _ a return plane ticket from LAX to Milwaukee. He sends Ben a Venmo for half the agreed amount as a down payment. 

_ Oh, shit. _ The payment goes through and it finally dawns on him that this means he actually needs to drive this land yacht across the country. He’s made that drive a dozen times before, but always with his dad to fix it each time it inevitably broke down.

He’s got visions of him on the side of some piddly state highway in Oklahoma, the hood open as smoke billows out, getting sunburnt as he waits for a flatbed tow truck.  _ Fuck. _ He remembers the summer he was sixteen and it broke down in Branson, Missouri - a town full of country music, tourist traps, and a Dolly Parton-themed diner - basically hell on earth for a moody teenager who was into Bright Eyes and Buffy. Rey had bought a baby blue rhinestone bejeweled cowboy hat - she’d looked adorable, but he told her she looked dumb.

His phone vibrating with a text message steals him out of his self-foreshadowing. 

_ We still on for the Brewers game at HopCat tonight?  _

It’s Rey, who loves Milwaukee’s mediocre baseball team and the crack fries at HopCat, though he’s unsure which she enjoys more. Who forgave him for his cowboy hat comment when he apologized by buying her a bag of fancy jerky the next day.

_ Wait a second.  _

Rey, who adored those summer vacations in the Falcon. Who got her mechanics license in high school auto shop, before she was even old enough to drive the cars she worked on. He can still hear what she’d said to him, when he drove her to the community college for the licensing exam… on a Saturday… at eight in the morning.  _ I’m thinking about my future, Ben, while you've been listening to mopey music and bitching about how long it takes everyone to power up on Dragon Ball Z. _

Rey, who’d love one last cross country trek to say goodbye to the aging Winnebago. 

_ You betcha, _ he texts back.  _ I’ve got something interesting to talk to you about.  _

When he gets to HopCat, Rey is already there, wearing the same short-sleeve Brewers jersey she wears to watch each game. He took her to an actual game in Milwaukee for her birthday one year and she'd had near the same reaction as when you surprise a six year old with a trip to Disney. She’s waving at him as soon as he's in the door, from their usual booth across the way.  _ It’s a prime location, Ben, _ she’s told him many times.  _ They always show the Brewers game on that TV, right there. _ She hops out, greeting him with a hug.

“I ordered us the Vladimir Poutine to share and I got you an Ambergeddon.” Rey pushes the pint glass towards him. It’s one of his favorites, and she knows it. “Fries should be here soon and I kept a menu in case we want more.”

The fries arrive a few minutes later, somehow making Rey remember Ben’s text from earlier. “So, you said you had something to talk to me about?” 

“Right, yea. You know how I’ve just had the Falcon sitting in my driveway the last couple weeks?”

“How could I not, what with how you’ve been complaining that you've gotta park the Golf in the streets where --”

“Where any dumbass could sideswipe it.” He finishes the sentence he’s said at least twenty times to her in the past three weeks. “I know. Good news, though, I’ve figured out what I’m gonna do with it.”

“Oh? What's that?”

“I’m selling it. Actually I’ve sold it,” he clarifies, “And just this afternoon too.”

“Oh, Ben. Really?”  _ Fuck me. _ He really was not ready for her disappointed voice. She takes a drink from her beer before she continues, and Ben notices the Lady Luck label, her main standby. “I’m glad you figured it out, but dammit if I won’t be sad to see it go.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He tells her all about the deal, how the buyer he found is all the way out in Anaheim, California, and he’s agreed to pay for everything. Rey knows how mechanically un-inclined Ben is, so he doesn’t hesitate to say that one of the reasons, aside from her love of the Falcon itself, was that he’s worried about its reliability, and would feel a great deal better with her coming along. She listens silently, every so often taking a forkful of poutine or a drink from her beer, and Ben wonders if he’s gotta try to sweeten the deal a bit - maybe offer to take her to Disneyland since it’s in the same city they’re going to - but then she finally says something. 

“Ben, stop.” She reaches over and grabs his hand, but doesn’t let hers linger. “I would be honored to be your co-pilot. Your Riker, if you will.”

“Really? You’re serious?” he almost yells.  _ Oh, wow, way to be way too eager there, Ben _ . 

“Yes. On one condition,” she tells him as she holds up her index finger.  _ Whatever it is, I’m fine with it, _ Ben thinks. S _ he wants dinner at that fancy farm-to-table place, or Brewers tickets, whatever it takes. _ “Which is, we make it a real road trip. I’ve got a soft spot for that beast of a RV, and if this is the last time I’ll ever be in it, then I’m gonna make us an itinerary, and we are gonna see some shit.”

Alright, he was up for anything except  _ that. _

Still, she agreed, thank god. He’s certain they’ll make it to Anaheim in one piece now.  _ Rey gets her trip, I get rid of the Falcon, we’ll be fine.  _

In the end, through some sort of otherworldly miracle, the Brewers win 11 to 3. Another Brewer’s fan joins her in her reverie, and buys the whole place a round. 

_ Everything’s coming up Rey. _

XxXxX

Rey comes over early on the Saturday afterwards, toolbox in hand, to help him fix some things on the Falcon. The buyer assured him he was fine with as-is, so long as it ran, but since now they’re apparently making it a whole trip to get out there, Ben knows they’ll want certain luxuries like a working stove top and a shower. 

“Alright, well, sink and the stovetop are done,” Rey announces proudly as she exits the Falcon. It’s been a while since she’s needed to work on anything like a stove, and she’s quite glad the RV didn’t blow up. “I’m ‘bout done wrenching on shit tonight. You wanna grab some dinner? I’ll come back tomorrow and get the shower sorted out.”

“No plans with Greg tonight? He out with the guys?”

“Oh, um no. No plans.”

“Rey, you’re not telling me something.”

“We broke up a few days ago,” she confesses, washing her hands at the hose on the side of the house, then wiping them dry on her jeans. “It's no big deal, really. Just not the one, I guess.” She can tell he’s only half believing her, but he doesn’t pry, at least not right then. It’ll come up later, she knows it. “Anyways, you wanna hit up the Old Fashioned tonight? We can split the cheese curds.”

His face lights up when she mentions the cheese curds at the Old Fashioned. They’ve been best friends for almost twenty years now, and Rey knows exactly what’ll get him to change the subject. 

Greg, though. Her latest in a long line of exes is not the conversation she wants to have tonight. 

******

Two days earlier -

“No way in hell.”

“Excuse me?” Rey questions. That was  _ not _ the reply she was looking for, especially since in her mind she was not asking a question.

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you take a week and a half road trip vacation with  _ Ben. _ ” Oh, and he spits out that name like it’s poison. 

“First, Greg, let’s get a few things straight here, from the get go. You are not my father, you don’t  _ let  _ me do things.” She pauses trying to calm herself. Is this the hill she wants to die on?  _ Maybe it is. _ “Second, it’s already approved with faculty, and I wasn’t asking for your permission, I was telling you my plans.”

“And you just expect me to be okay with this? To be here when you return.”

“Yes. I’m doing a favor for my best friend. Why wouldn’t you be here?”

“A blind man could see that you’re in love with Ben Solo, Rey.”

She  _ knows  _ that, but to have him remind her of it makes her decision for her. Greg isn’t a bad guy, but he’s nowhere near good enough to deal with this bullshit.  _ Plus, if he knows I love Ben, why is he still even here? What is the actual point?  _

“Ya know what, you’re right.” She sees his carabiner of keys on her kitchen table, the key to her apartment shining on it. So she grabs it and pulls her key off. “Let’s just cut our losses right here. I’ll keep this,” she says, pocketing the key, and handing the rest back to him, “And we’ll part as amicably as possible.”

“Are you serious?”

_ Oh, now you sound remorseful. Not expecting me to call your bluff on this one? _

“Dead serious. You’ve been an amazing boyfriend, Greg. And you make one helluva tater tot casserole.” 

He laughs at that. “Well, I am from Minnesota, ya know.” He really pulls out all the stops on the accent sometimes. 

“It’s just that, you’re you, and that’s not him. I don’t think it’ll ever be enough for me, no matter how hard we try.”

He nods, and moves closer, going in for a hug, which she readily accepts. He kisses her forehead when he pulls away, saying, “I hope your trip, and everything else, works out. You know he’s an idiot if he doesn’t wanna be with you.”

“Maybe you should email me that casserole recipe? Might help me finally snatch him up.” 

“I will, and I’ll see you around Rey. Hopefully you’ll be with him and I can give you some well deserved congratulations.”  

******

_ Whatever. Fuck him for being so damn right _ , she decides, until she realizes how much different this trip is going to be now that she’s single. 

And Ben’s single. 

Oh, and Greg was right. So very right - she’s been in love with Ben Solo since she was fourteen and figured out that the fluttery feeling in her stomach she got when he looked at her meant something, and it wasn’t just caused by bad Chinese food. There's memories in that Winnebago, maybe too many of them, and for the first time since god knows when, they're both single at the same time. 

Would she jump on him in a heartbeat? Oh, heavens, yes. Rey had fallen for young Ben, with large ears, thick black-rimmed glasses before they were hip, a mouthful of braces, and an unhealthy obsession with the relationship between Kirk and Spock. 

This hot professor look he’s had for the last few years now has been the bane of her existence when she was in a relationship, and the fuel for her fantasies when she wasn’t. She blames her newfound, yet not entirely unwelcome, teacher kink solely on him. 

So yea, her plan? To take Ben on the best Falcon road trip of his life. The rest of the pieces of the puzzle will just fall into place, she hopes. 

_ I’ve got a very good feeling about this.  _


	2. Chapter 2

Not only is the Falcon the embodiment of his teenage angst, everywhere he looks there’s memories, stuck in every nook and cranny. 

One glance at the kitchen table and he sees thousands of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Ice cream sundaes in plastic bowls, eaten with those cereal box prize spoons that changed color in cold temperatures. Strawberry Pop-Tarts, Flintstone push-up pops, Kraft mac & cheese with cut-up hot dogs. He sees his homework spread out on the laminate table, from the long weekend trips they took to his mother’s family cabin up near Duluth. He sees his mom and dad teaching him and Rey how to play euchre, and board game nights filled with Scrabble, Yahtzee, Clue, and Monopoly.

_ Benny, you know you can’t build any hotels until you have four houses.  _

_ Lessons on the rules? That’s rich, coming from you, Han.  _

_ What am I doing?  _

_ You know damn well you try to distract people when you land on expensive properties.  _

_ Everyone does that, sweetheart. _

_ Yea, everyone does that, mom.  _

He remembers how his dad had laughed his ass off at that. Ben usually took his mom’s side of things, but Han would always get a kick out of it when he’d team up with him to get her all riled up. They were all equally crap at Monopoly, though Leia was scarily competent at Risk. 

Everytime he looks at the captains chairs, he sees his parents sitting up front, always either bickering about something inconsequential, or the opposite - all gross and lovey-dovey, holding hands and singing along to the Steve Miller Band. 

He sees himself, probably around twelve years old, sitting in the passenger seat with a large paper map unfolded across his lap, playing the part of navigator, wearing a trucker hat his dad bought at the Schlitz brewery tour store in Milwaukee.

Ben can see Rey at fifteen, brown hair in braids over her shoulder, wearing the Blink-182 t-shirt she stole from him. It was giant hanging off her small frame, and she’d had to knot the back and roll up the sleeves. She's sitting in the driver’s seat getting driving lessons from Han, as him and his mother sit at the dinette, knuckles white on the table as Rey takes them on I-70 through the Rockies.  _ Not one of dad’s brightest ideas, _ he thinks, looking back. 

He walks back and throws his duffel bag on the bed. He sees pillow fights and blanket forts when he was very little, his mom reading to him. 

And then - Rey, giggly as she holds his hand and pulls him through the aisleway. Eager as she moves to help pull his shirt over his head, he’d had to bend down so she could reach. She'd been so falsely confident, then the nerves settled in for them both. He remembers how much he didn't want to mess this up. 

_ “Rey, I… I've never done this before and -” _

_ Her hands find his face and she kisses him gently. “Me neither. Its okay to be nervous, I'm nervous too.” _

_ “Are you sure you want to do this?” _

_ “More than anything, Benny, please…” _

He turns and heads back to the front seats, unable to deal with anymore of  _ that  _ particular memory at the moment. It's fourteen years later and there she is, his Rey, sitting in the driver’s seat with a Brewers hat on, ready and raring to start this trip. 

He’s thankful that sometime in the last couple years, his mom had convinced his dad to replace the stereo and put in a new one - the original hadn’t been able to play cassettes in at least five years, and had started to only pick up conservative AM talk radio stations, and his mother was having positively none of that nonsense. Rey had helped install the new one, even picked it out so that it had a USB port.

She still hasn’t told him where the first stop is on the grand trip she’s got planned, and he’s been given express direction not to open her trip notebook.  _ Trust me, Ben, _ she’d said.  _ You’ll love it, I promise. _

He nods off sometime early on, and wakes up to driving through Iowa City, but then he's confused when she turns south, off the interstate and onto a country highway. 

“Gonna tell me where we’re going yet?”

“Nope,” she replies, a devilish smile playing on her lips. She reaches down into the door pocket, then tosses a fun-size bag of Skittles at him. “Here. Hold tight, have a snack. We’ll be there soon.”

Fifteen minutes later and she’s leaving the highway, turning onto an even smaller road. The sides of the road are filled with corn, corn, and more corn - it is Iowa, after all - and then he sees the town sign.  _ Holy fucking shit.  _

“ _ Rey. _ ”

“Yes, Ben?” Her voice comes out sweetly and so innocent, like she’s just happened upon this town. 

“Are we really where I think we are?”

“Do you mean, are we really in Riverside, Iowa, the future birthplace of your beloved Captain James T. Kirk?”

He almost tells her he loves her, right then and there, but he bites his tongue. “You are amazing.” 

“I told you to trust me.”

“Well, I have full faith in you from here on out.” 

“Good. But the flattery will get you nowhere, since I’m still not telling you what the next stops are.”

Ben is amazed that Rey remembered about Riverside. Every road trip that they passed through Iowa City, he’d practically begged his parents make the detour and take him. He’s still a huge Star Trek fan, especially with the remakes coming out in the past few years, and  _ maybe _ he's perused his fair share of Kirk/Spock fan fiction over the years.  _ Maybe _ . 

_ “It’ll be quick, dad, I swear. I just wanna take a picture with the sign and then we can be on the way.” _

_ “There and back is almost an hour outta the way, bud. We gotta make good time if we wanna get to the campground before dark.” _

It’d have been at that point that he’d get angry, yell something about how he hated these road trips. The one time he’s thinking of wasn’t passing by Riverside, but on another leg of a trip.

_ “And you wonder why I hate these road trips? Maybe if we went some place that I wanted to go, but no,” he spits out, elongating the ‘no.’ “It’s always about what you and mom want.” _

Right about then he'd go and say something particularly cruel. 

_ “I mean, shit, you listen to Rey’s suggestions and she’s not even family.”  _

_That’d been how long ago?_ _Summer of 2002,_ he remembers, they were fourteen and sixteen, and she’d asked if they could go to Santa Cruz after they were done in Yosemite. He remembers he wanted to stuff the words back down his throat as soon as he realized what he’d said. 

_ “Benjamin Solo.”  _

_ He turns around at his mother’s words, sees her turned towards him, the anger clearly written across her features, but it’s Rey across from her, tears streaming down her cheeks, choking on her sobs that hurts him the most. She looks let down, betrayed, and when she meets his eyes, she pushes up from the dinette and runs down the aisle, throwing herself on the back bed.  _

_ “You can be as pissed as ya want at your mom and me, but you best go back there and grovel at that young lady’s feet.” He watches his dad loosen and tighten his grip on the steering wheel. “You keep saying bullshit like that to her, you’re gonna lose her, and you’re gonna regret it.” _

_ He stands, Leia taking his place up front with Han, and he makes his long walk down the aisle way, all the way to the back. He feels like a man walking to be executed.  _

_ She’s closed the crushed velvet privacy curtain, but Ben doesn’t bother to ask permission to enter, just pulls it closed again once he’s inside. He’s got no idea what to do, but whatever he does, he doesn’t want his parents watching. Sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed, she looks up at him, tear-stained cheeks and red eyes, and he feels like shit for making her this way. They’re friends, best friends, and lord knows he wants more and this is not how you go about it. Ben’s upset her in the past, usually teasing gone a bit too far, but this is different and he’s still awkward enough around girls to not know how to properly comfort her, how to make this better.  _

_ Do something. Anything is better than standing here.  _

_ So he sits on the bed next to her, pulls her into his arms the best he knows how, remembering last time he held her like this when her guinea pig died. There’s something different about this, how willingly she falls into his arms, her tears and warm breath against his neck, the way she clutches at his back.  _

_ “I’m so sorry, Rey,” he says, his hand smoothing down her hair, like he’s seen his dad do with his mom. “I didn’t mean it, I swear. You’re part of this family, you’re… you’re my best friend, you have to believe me.” _

_ “Oh, Ben, I know.” She takes her arms from around his back, pulling away slightly so she can look at him. He knows he’s started to cry too now, but couldn’t care less that she sees. Rey leans back in, her head on his chest. “You just say the worst things sometimes. I know your truth though, I know that’s not you.”  _

_ Rey had a better way with words at fourteen that Ben would ever have.  _

She pulls into a Casey’s gas station on the edge of town. “There's something else I need to tell you before we go into town.”  _ This has to be bad news, _ he thinks, unsure what could make this any better. “...its Trekfest weekend!”

Ben knows this - all of it - from Trekfest to hanging out in small town Iowa all day is not Rey’s thing, but she plays the good sport the entire time. They arrive just in time for the parade, which admittedly, reminds them more of a cross between their high school homecoming parade and a Memorial Day celebration than something Trekkie, but that doesn’t stop them from grabbing handfuls of the candy that the parade participants throw from their cars. 

It’s close to ten-thirty at night when they reach the Sleepy Hollow RV park where they’ll spend their first night, just west of Iowa City. They’d watched the parade, the unveiling of the bronze Captain Kirk statue in the park, and split a whole apple pie for lunch, bought from some lady named Barb. In the afternoon, they found the birthplace sign he’d always talked about and got pictures in front of it, one with each of them separate, and then a nice older man cosplaying as Scotty, accent and all, offered to get a picture with both of them in it. The festival’s schedule didn’t have much they were interested in during the afternoon, and instead Rey suggested they took a break from the small town activities, wandering around and then hanging out for an hour or so by the river south of town. They had food truck barbecue for dinner, watched a demolition derby between the county sheriff department and the volunteer firefighters, and stuck around for fireworks afterwards.

“I can’t believe we were able to amuse ourselves for twelve whole hours in that place,” Rey tells him. They’d checked in and hooked up the RV in their spot for the night, now both sitting at the dinette, a spread of fun-sized candies in front of them. 

“I can’t believe we got so many mini Snickers,” Ben replies as he picks them out of the candy pile. “Better watch out, I’m gonna be bouncing off the walls tomorrow.”

“Ugh, speaking of tomorrow. We should get to sleep.”

Ben agrees, sliding the candy into a bowl in one sweep, all except for the Snickers, which he puts in his backpack. “Come on, let’s get this thing converted.”  

He bends down and reaches underneath the table, unlocking the safety lever that holds the tabletop in place, then she helps him lift and maneuver it to the side. It wouldn’t be a two person job if there was more space to move around with it. Ben grabs the pedestal to place it in the stairwell so it’s out of the way at night. 

“Ben?” Rey calls out. “We’re gonna have a problem here.”

“Just hang on, I’ll help get the table top in place in a sec.”

“Good luck with that.”

“What do you mean?” He turns around to see her standing beside the halfway converted bed, staring down at it with a confused look on her face.

“Unless that thing just hovers, I’ll be sleeping on quite the angle. Whatever ledge is supposed to hold that up, it’s gone.”

“Fuck.”

“Yea.” They both crouch down to inspect it. “How does that even happen?”

“Who knows. Dad was always tinkering in the Falcon, it probably broke and he never got around to fixing it since no one was using this for a bed anymore. Can still use it as a table just fine.” 

“Oh well. Plenty of room for us both in the other bed.” She shrugs, then grabs her pillows and pajamas off the cushion. 

She can’t see inside his head, thank god, since every bell and whistle is sounding its alarm. They’d shared a bed before, platonically, for days and weeks and years - that same broken one in front of them, since his parents didn’t seem to care. 

“ _ You don’t think they’re too old for that now, Han?” _

_ “Nah, and besides, you seen how Ben acts around girls? Kid’s too chicken shit to try anything, ‘specially with you and me six feet away.” _

Han had been one-hundred percent correct in that assessment. 

But now? Now he can talk to women, talk to men, and knows exactly what to do, what his dick is already starting to throb at with the mere mention of being in a bed with Rey.  _ Now is not the time. _

He’ll joke about it. That’ll work. 

“Guess it’s time for the Great Wall of Pillows again, eh? Like old times.” He goes into the cupboard and grabs two spare pillows. 

“Ben, seriously? We’re in our thirties. We can share a bed like two normal adult people. There’s no need for a pillow wall.” 

“No, it’s fine Rey. There’ll still be plenty of room and it’ll keep me from trying to hog the bed. I’ve been told I’ve gotten worse about that.” 

“Um, okay. It doesn’t quite seem necessary, But if that makes you more comfortable, then it’s cool.”

_ Yea, more comfortable. _ Nothing about sleeping on a bed inches away from her makes him comfortable. 

“Alright, well, I’m gonna change. You wanna make the bed up?”

She changes in the bathroom and he’s already in bed with the pillow wall in place when she finishes.

_ Oh, fuck. _ He’s glad he’s already under the covers so she can’t tell how his body is reacting.  _ Really? She’s gonna sleep in just a long t-shirt? Is this how this trip is going to be? _ It’s pale gray and reaches mid-thigh, the words screen-printed across her chest in red say something about UW Madison’s engineering faculty softball league. He’s not sure, he’s really trying to not look. Thankfully, she seems not to notice - he sees how she uses her hands on the wall as a guide as she walks down the hallway and realizes she’s removed her contacts.  _ Good, her blindness will have shielded her from my eye-fucking. _

The mattress shifts slightly under her weight and the blankets move as she tugs them around herself, pushing her back against the two pillows that serve as a literal friendzone between them. 

“Night, Ben. Hope you’re ready for more adventures tomorrow.”

“If it’s anything like today, you know I am.”

XxXxX

They didn’t set any alarms, Rey has an internal clock worth its weight in gold, since she keeps the same morning routine seven days a week. It’s warm, cozy though, almost cocoon-like under the blanket, and nothing at all inside of her wants to destroy that feeling by doing something as silly as getting out of bed. There’s a delicious weight she feels, just slightly on top of her, but not pressing too hard and -- 

_ Wait, what? What the hell is leaning on me? _

She opens her eyes to her surroundings - somehow one of the members of the Great Wall of Pillows became her very own Benedict Arnold, her Judas, a traitor in the night that dared to leave its place between her and Ben, having a mind of it’s own and the guts to somehow end up as little spoon in her arms… then she looks downward, at the arm slung over her waist, holding her body tightly with its hand splayed across her stomach.  _ Just like how I have become little spoon for Ben. _

_Well, fuck._ _This is gonna be weird._ She'd really hoped last night that they could just share the bed like normal adults, but the way he'd been so adamant about the pillow wall had left her disheartened. _Maybe I don’t actually have a chance with him anymore._ She carefully extracts herself from his embrace, and luckily Ben “wouldn't wake up if a freight train came through the room” Solo just mumbles nonsense and continues sleeping. 

He's sitting at the dinette when she gets out of the shower, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands like it’s some precious thing, and her stomach does a little flip, remembering how large his hand felt earlier. Ben hears her open the door and looks up, and Rey sees his eyes widen as he sharply inhales, watches as his gaze roams up her legs, and she remembers she's only wearing the t-shirt she slept in the night before. 

She's glad he's a high school history teacher and not an air traffic controller, because she's getting some dangerously mixed signals here. 

“My eyes are up here, Benny,” she teases, and oh, how good it feels to watch him falter. 

“W-what?” he spits out, stuttering slightly. It’s the stutter that lets her know she got him. “Christ, Rey. Get your mind outta the gutter.” He takes a drink from his coffee, calm enough to do so again. 

“Alright, alright. Geez-o-petes, Ben, and here I thought you could still take a joke.” Rey turns to walk down the hallway, a shit-eating grin across her face the second she knows he can’t see.  _ Always so transparent, aren’t you? _ She spares him a bit of sanity, pulling closed the curtain while she changes into leggings and that Green Bay Packers t-shirt he bought her for Christmas, even though he knows how much she doesn’t give a shit about football, or his beloved Packers. 

Really, she’s got no idea where his love for the team and idolization of Coach Lombardi came from, but his classroom where he teaches has at least three Lombardi quotes on the wall. She makes the pilgrimage north with him to Lambeau Field once a year, to get snowed on and freeze her butt off in the stands with eighty-one thousand screaming fans, and watch her usually stoic best friend revel in the occasion to don a Brett Favre jersey big enough to fit over his winter jacket, paint his face green and gold, wear a styrofoam piece of cheese on his head, and cheer to his heart’s content.  _ He joins me for weekly Brewers game viewing during their season, so I guess I can’t complain about one day out of the year spent surrounded by cheeseheads.   _

After a quick breakfast, instant oatmeal and the coffee he’d already brewed, Rey begins that day’s drive, since once again Ben’s got no clue where they’re headed. She can’t spoil the surprise and make him drive to their destination, so she’s decided she’ll definitely have him take a driving shift afterwards.

Truthfully, though she’s trying hard not to let it show, she’s more heartbroken then she thought she’d be over a forty year old RV that she hasn’t been in for years. She’s been hoping her little plan to take Ben on a trip to the places he wasn’t able to see all those years ago will both relieve some of her heartache and help him realize that maybe, just maybe, all those trips weren’t horrible. A teensy, minute part of her has this improbable hope that he’ll fall in love with the RV,  _ with her, _ and decide not to sell it. 

XxXxX

It’s a good four and a half hour drive that morning, across I-80 and then south on 35, and unlike yesterday when Ben realized their purpose the second he saw the city limits sign, it takes him longer to figure this one out. 

“We stopping here for lunch?”

“Lunch, yes, and your next surprise.”

“Here?”  _ What could be here? _ He’s trying to think of what he associates with Independence, Missouri.  _ Harry S. Truman home, lots of Mormon nonsense… _

“I’ll give you a clue. You better be careful, Ben, wouldn’t want to lose supplies trying to ford the river, or die of dysentery.”

Oh.

_ Oh.  _

It’s the jumping off point for the Oregon Trail. The game he’d been obsessed with, played every chance he got in computer lab in elementary school. The game he credits with sparking his interest in American history. 

Rey knows this, all of this, because she’s always been there. Always. She beams at him, happy again for what she’s come up with and he wishes he’d have had a hand in planning out this road trip. 

He’d take her to the Field of Dreams house and play catch with her on the field, to every sticky-floored kitschy 1950s diner along Route 66, all the way to Astoria, Oregon and they’d find the Goonies house. He’ll take her back to Santa Cruz and buy her those surf lessons she wanted, he’ll ride the teacups at Disneyland despite how sick those spinny rides make him. 

_ Maybe we’ll just have to plan another trip, _ he thinks, enjoying the idea of surprising Rey, but then…  _ what? Are we gonna drive all the way there in the Golf? _ It’d be really easy in the Falcon, he knows that for sure.  _ No. No, in three days the Falcon is gone, stop thinking like that.  _

XxXxX

After a few drives around downtown Independence, Rey finally finds a spot that looks like the Falcon will not only fit in, but also not get immediately ticketed, towed, or otherwise just be a nuisance for other people also trying to get errands done. They eat lunch quickly, and it must be a testament to how antsy Ben is to get out and see what she’s got planned, since his top pick for lunch is Subway. 

It’s a short walk from lunch to the National Frontier Trails Museum. Once inside, she follows him throughout the various exhibits like a shadow, content to let him explore as much as he wants. It’s not that Rey doesn’t enjoy a trip to a museum, but her interests lie more in the big city museums. She often would make the drive into Chicago for the Field Museum and the art institute, plus a much needed stop in Chinatown for soup dumplings, something unheard of even in Madison. 

But no, this small town museum thing? This is all him. He reads every plaque, watches the films, and looks at everything, no matter how cheesy the display. When she’d looked up the museum, it’s website said most visitors stay between an hour to an hour and a half - Ben explores for just over two hours. After the exhibits, they browse through the museum store, and he buys her a buffalo stuffed animal. It’ll find a spot up on the front dashboard for the rest of the trip, along with the hula dancer girl and bulldog bobble head. Rey names the buffalo Larry, and he’s quite adorable - and quiet. She’d seen Ben eyeing a souvenir harmonica and is glad not have that along for the trip.

Rey hugs Larry to her chest as they cross the street to the large preserved historical house. There's not time for a tour, she explains, but there's something else she thinks he’ll like. 

And he does. 

The second he sees the wagon wheel ruts in the grass, he flashes a grin at her and quickens his pace. Her heart does this weird little flip-flop, watching him crouch down in the grass, those awkward long legs jutting out to the side, as he leans down to run his hand across the ground. So she joins him, her and Larry the buffalo, sitting down on the lawn next to him. Rey reaches out and puts her hand on the dirt, mirroring him. It’s nothing she’s normally interested in, but she can’t deny feeling the importance of it, or maybe just the importance of it to Ben. 

They help pull each other up from the ground, and walk the half mile back towards the courthouse square. The last stop in town is to check out the historical markers outside the courthouse, and Ben takes pictures of all of them, despite that she’s positive there’s pictures online. He locates the stone Oregon Trail marker on the side of the courthouse, and asks the first person he sees to take their photo. They stand off to the left and he pulls her into his side, mumbling something like,  _ don’t wanna block the sign _ , and her arm instinctively wraps around his waist. When they check the picture afterwards, it’s adorable and cheesy and makes her think of how good it feels to be pressed against him - even Larry the Buffalo seems like he’s happy to be a part of it.

XxXxX

Once they leave Independence, they start a long push west, heading towards Colorado Springs. It’s the first time Rey’s told him of their destination before they got there, but all they’ve got planned for the rest of the long day is to split driving responsibilities, and stare out the windows at the farmland and tumbleweeds. They chat for a while as they leave Missouri, mostly Ben excitedly telling Rey about how he can use some of what he’s seen in next year’s classes, but the majority of the trip is spent in relative silence.

“You alright?” Rey asks. She’s been quiet too, but still singing along to the music she’s choosing, or pointing out whatever farm animals she spots. “You haven’t said anything in like an hour and that was just to tell me what you wanted from Arby’s. You aren’t singing along, either, and I know for a fact that this is your favorite Springsteen song.” 

He shrugs, adjusting his hands on the wheel. “I’m fine. Just thinking. Not much else to do here except think and stare at the cornfields.”

“Wanna tell what you’re thinking about?”

“Well…,” he pauses, mulling over if he wants to tell her what he’s thinking about or make up something. He doesn’t like to lie to her. “I understand if you don’t wanna talk about it, but I was curious about what went down with Greg. I know you weren’t giving me the full story.”

Rey begins her explanation, telling him that Greg wasn't cool with her going on the trip, not cool with her being alone with him. Ben realizes what her ex was afraid of. He would  _ never _ try something if she was in a relationship.  _ Shit, she’s single and I can’t even find the words. _ “I'm not going to be in a relationship with anybody, no matter what, if they have a problem with our friendship. That's my hard no.”

He mumbles something quickly, that she doesn't pick up on. “Hmm?”

“I said, that's mine too. My hard no. Or,” he continues, “if they don't like you.”

“You broke up with someone because they didn't like me? Who was that?”

“Logan.”

“Wait, the Logan that I went out with before you did?”

“Have there been  _ that  _ many Logans?” 

“Shut up,” she says, with no malice whatsoever. “Geez, I wish I could've been a fly on the wall for that conversation.” 

“No, you, um… I’m really glad you  _ didn’t  _ get to hear that conversation.”

******

Some time in the past - 

“Sorry, I gotta go… oh, yea, my date just got here. Mmhmm. No… fine. Talk to later, Rey.” Ben swipes at his phone to end the call, and slides it in his shirt pocket as his dips his head slightly to kiss the shorter man in front of him. 

“Who was that? Do I have someone to be jealous of?”

“That was Rey,” Ben answers, and when Logan quirks an eyebrow up he realizes he's thinking Rey with an A. “Rey’s a woman, my best friend since I was like fourteen. You've got nothing to be jealous of there.”  _ Well, except for all those romantic feelings in my head, but let's not discuss those.  _

They sit down at the sidewalk table, and Ben's ready to say something about how it's still half off appetizers until seven, so he ordered them some truffle fries, and the waitress said the lake perch on special tonight is amazing, but then Logan opens his mouth and everything goes awry. 

“Long shot, but you don't mean Rey as in, Rey Jackson? Cute little brunette, engineering prof, loves the Brewers unironically?”

“Yea, you know her?”

“We went out a couple dates last year, and man, I hope you know, but your best friend gets around.”

“Oh, okay… wait, what’d you just say?” Logan says it so nonchalantly that Ben nearly misses it. Even now, he’s just peering across the table at Ben, looking over the top of the menu, like this is a normal thing to chat about. “It sounded a lot like you insinuated that she’s slutty.”

“Well I mean, you know how quick she goes through men, and women.” Ben must look unconvinced, since Logan closes the menu and sets it down on the table with a sigh. “Shit, Ben, I think she’s been through most of the available teaching staff at Madison.” 

Alright, so Ben knows he’s being hyperbolic, there’s no way Rey’s slept with every unspoken for faculty member at the university, but even if she had, as long as she’s careful, he doesn’t get why Logan is concerned. 

“Yea, and how many people have you been through? Or me?”

Logan rolls his eyes. “It’s different, she’s —

_ She’s a woman.  _

Oh, there’s that Ben Solo anger coming out to play.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence and give me some self-serving patriarchal bullshit, not with how many people you’ve fucked,” he says, his voice having changed from confused to seething in a flash. “Just because she’s a woman and is sex positive —”

“I bet sex isn’t the only thing she’s positive for.”

He clenches his fist under the table, but continues from where he left off. “ — doesn’t mean you get to slut shame her.”

“Fucking hell, Ben. You sound like a goddamn women’s studies course. Wanna tone down your feminist theory rant long enough to order some food?”

“That’s cute. You think I’m still getting dinner with you?” He shifts in his seat, taking his wallet from his pocket. “When you sit here and insult my best friend six ways to Sunday?” Ben grabs his jacket as he stands, chair legs scraping against the concrete as it pushes back. He slaps a ten dollar bill down on the tablecloth, worried that Logan would ditch the bill for the fries he ordered. “Yea, that's gonna be a no fucking way from me, I have a policy to avoid dating misogynistic slutshaming dickbags.” 

He could say so much more, and wants to, but some of the other outside diners are looking at them now, and getting banned from this restaurant isn't high on his to-do list. He likes the place, and more so than that, he loves the chocolate cake here. 

So instead, he chooses to leave, walking circles around downtown Madison until his dress shoes make his feet hurt and his anger dwindles down to a simmer, and he finds himself back in front of the same restaurant as before. There's a pair of women at the table he was at with Logan, who's long gone by now. The bar seating is first come, first serve, so he walks straight past the host stand and sits in one of the swiveling bar stools. 

The bartender puts a drink napkin down in front of him. “Anything to eat? Kitchen's closing in ten.”

“You got any chocolate cake left?”

******

Rey seems like she takes his word for it, which is good, since he really doesn’t want to rehash that conversation. Logan was kind of a shit anyways, dumping her with a text, if he remembers correctly. 

It’s a long afternoon and evening of driving, punctuated by stops for gas, snacks, driver switches, and, now that the Greg break-up story is out, singing along to whatever music is playing. Some eight hours later, when they park and hook up the Falcon in Colorado Springs, both of them are too tired from the drive to care or remember about putting up the pillow wall between them. They fall asleep quickly, their backs pressed up against each other.


	3. Chapter 3

Another day in the Falcon, another morning that Rey wakes up to Ben’s arm around her middle, fingers resting on her stomach, the insistent press of his hardness at her lower back. This is something she could get used to. She lets out a shaky breath, an evil smile on her face as she imagines wiggling her ass against him. 

Or waking him up with her mouth. 

_ That’s one way to tell someone you’ve loved them for a decade and a half.  _

How would he react? It's definitely something Rey’s fantasized about before, never with him so close though. She wonders if his hand would go to her hair to stop her, or if he’d pull her ponytail out and hold her in place, his hand fisting hard into her hair as he rambles out words of praise for her. 

She wonders how his skin tastes, salty and slick with precum and her saliva. Rey finds her thoughts drifting to how good he’d feel, heavy and oh so thick, his warm skin, and going by what she feels at her back, she’d definitely need to use her hand to make up for what can’t fit in her mouth. 

Deep throat may not be on her list of skills, but enthusiasm sure as hell is. Her eyes on him as she hollows out her cheeks and sucks, hand working the part of his length she can’t possibly take, she watches him losing all composure, trying his hardest not to thrust into her mouth, though she would love to see him lose control. He groans when her other hand finds his balls, gently massaging them.  _ Fuck, that’s so good, Rey. You're so good to me. _

His words and the way cock twitches, he’s not quite there yet, but close, it sends a rush of wetness between her legs, and she squeezes her thighs together, trying to relieve a bit of the nagging pressure and —

_ Fuck.  _

Her eyes burst open, shutting down her daydream, and she remembers that not only is she  _ not _ waking up Ben with a blowjob, but he’s right behind her, sound asleep, and she’s got a hand down her sleep shorts.  _ Abort, abort. _ She needs to get out of this bed - her thighs are slick with her own arousal and the last thing she wants is him to wake up to her getting herself off. 

As quickly and quietly as possible, she extracts herself from under his arm, holding her breath as she makes an awkward escape to the bathroom. 

When she finally emerges from the bathroom, Ben’s already sitting at the table with their coffee ready. Dressed in a towel and only somewhat satisfied, she makes a beeline for the bedroom to get changed. It's not like quickly and quietly getting off in the tiniest shower known to man is a great experience, and definitely not the one she wants when the person she really wants touching her is ten feet away, but it does the trick, for now. 

XxXxX

They're a quarter of the way up the Manitou Incline, just over two thousand steps left to go, and all he sees in his line of sight is Rey’s ass in a pair of skintight black booty shorts, and miles of tanned leg between the hem and her hiking shoes. 

He's gone on runs with her before, the hobby she goes in and out of with the seasons, so he's used to this view.  _ What I'm not used to is waking up to the RV smelling like sex.  _

That's the distracting part. She probably has no clue he'd woken up just in time to watch her awkward shuffle down the aisle way into the bathroom. The second he heard the shower turn on, he knew exactly what she was doing in there, doing to herself in there, only eight feet and a thin sheet of plywood separating them.  _ Bold move, Rey. _ He wondered if she needed her hand clasped tight across her mouth to keep quiet, if she thought of him, if the close-quarters and zero privacy and all those goddamn memories had gotten to her like they had to him. He wanted to take a shower right afterwards, revel in scent of her arousal as he took himself in hand. Maybe he wouldn’t have even tried to be quiet, let her hear him moan out her name as he came. 

_ That’s one way to tell someone you’ve loved them for a decade and a half.  _

Yea, he didn’t do any of that. 

Through sheer willpower - something he’d learned from having to share the dinette bed with Rey during his teenage years - he managed to persuade his dick to calm the fuck down, then changed and started making coffee and breakfast. 

Years ago, when they’d passed through Colorado Springs on vacation, despite not being the athletic or outdoorsy type of kid at all, the Manitou Incline had been the place he had wanted to go. 

_ “Kid, ya find every reason on god’s green earth to skip gym class. I doubt you’d enjoy climbing up two thousand feet of elevation change.” _

_ “Air is thinner up here too, Ben. I don’t think it’ll be good for you,” his mom chimed in, her answer a little more palatable than his dad’s. “And besides, you know your dad’s got a bad back. He can’t be climbing up stairs like that either.” _

So, instead, they went a few miles down the road and took the Falcon for a drive up Pikes Peak. The back of the Falcon still has the  _ This Car Climbed Pikes Peak _ bumper sticker on it - he knows, he tried to peel it off last week in anticipation of this trip, but it seemed to be stuck on for good. Just like when Rey had gotten driving lessons in the mountains, Ben and his mother had sat at the dinette, trying to stay calm as Han navigated up the switchbacks. It wasn’t that he was a bad driver, far from it, he just seemed to think he was in a race car driving in the Pikes Peak hill climb, instead of an RV that was continuously out of breath as it lumbered up to fourteen thousand feet.   

_ And, because Rey has a mind like a steel trap, we’re at the Incline today _ . Thinking back, he isn’t entirely sure why he had it in his head at seventeen to request this place as a stop - it wasn’t even legally open to the public and his father was certainly correct about his disdain for gym class and physical activity in general - save for the couple of months when he’d decided it’d be cool to try to skateboard. A neighbor’s DIY quarterpipe, a sprained ankle, and a badly bruised ego had ended that for him, about as quickly as it started. 

Maybe it was the view from the top that he was interested in. If that was the case, it’s certainly worth the climb. They get lucky with a clear sunny day, so when they finally get to the summit, they’re able to see for miles. The city of Colorado Springs is somewhere in the distance and the little town of Manitou Springs looks tiny down below, and beyond that, the wilderness spreads out in all the other directions. 

Her arms go around his waist as soon as he steps away from the final railroad tie step, and he walks them away from the edge, a vision in his head of him tumbling down and taking out all the hikers like that boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. She pulls her phone from the side of her pack to get selfies, a “nice” picture she asks another hiker to take, then a picture of Ben by himself. Rey pulls him back towards all those ridiculously steep steps they just climbed up, and for a split second he thinks she means to go back down that way, but instead, she plops herself down on the top railroad tie. 

“Come on,” she says, patting the open spot next to her. “One last Instagram-worthy shot and then we’ll get outta here.” He obliges, mirroring her as she stretches her legs out in front, and takes a picture of the thousands of steps with their hiking boots in the foreground.

Thankfully, they take the Barr Trail back down to the parking lot. On their ascent, there'd been a few groups of hikers descending, and each time they passed by Ben could see the same expression plain on their faces, that  _ clearly I've made some bad decisions _ look.

Rey passes him a red Gatorade once they're back inside the Falcon, and then, as she pulls forward from the RV parking spot, she says the most wonderful words that he's ever heard. 

“Next stop, donuts.” 

XxXxX

What Rey didn't say, was that the donuts in question were two hours away. In Breckenridge. 

_ Oops.  _

After a half hour of driving west, away from Colorado Springs and most civilization, Ben finally looks up from the book he’s reading. He glances at the clock on the radio, then out the window, and lastly at Rey.  

“Are these donuts hidden in the mountains?” On cue, his stomach lets out a loud grumble as he finishes his question.

“Sort of. Don’t worry, they’re not hidden in a geocache kind of way. They’ll be fresh, I promise. And,” she adds, “It’s someplace else you missed out when in high school. Daylight Donuts, in Breckenridge.” 

“I missed out on donuts?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Um, maybe I need a bit of a refresher. What plans of my parents got in the way this time?”

_ Crap, he really doesn’t remember.  _

******

Summer 2003

He’s groggy and seems confused as she shakes his shoulders to wake him up.  _ He can't have already forgotten our plans, could he?  _

“C’mon, Ben. You need to get ready.” She tosses a t-shirt, fleece pullover, and his hiking pants at him as he sits up. “Did you forget our plans?” 

“...Breakfast? At that donut place we passed yesterday?” 

_ Yup, he's forgotten.  _

“Snacks on the way, then a hike, and then all the donuts you want.” 

“A hike?” 

“Um, yea. You totally agreed to it yesterday. Your parents are going on some horse riding tour for their anniversary this morning and so we get to do whatever we want. You agreed when I said we should go for a hike.”

“That doesn't sound like me, but if you say so. Just give me a minute to change.”

It’s still dark outside when they catch the free community bus up to the Peak 8 lodge, and Rey passes him some jerky and a granola bar to eat. “I promise, donuts later.”

They follow the trail, which seems to be roughly the same as the Swinger ski run, as it switchbacks it’s way up the front face, back and forth under the Colorado Superchair. The signs say it’s a blue run, supposedly intermediate, but with the grade they’re climbing at Rey is glad the only skiing she does is cross country. 

It’s taken longer than Rey had imagined for them to reach the Vista Haus lodge on Peak 8, and that wasn’t even the final destination she had in mind, just the halfway point. When she’d talked to the lady at the visitor center yesterday, she’d planned for them to take a break where they are now, and then continue on to the summit of Peak 8, just over another mile. She hadn’t taken into account that neither of them are used to hiking at over ten thousand feet above sea level, and the altitude is slowing them both down. 

“You kids headed to the top?” the man asks, as he passes Rey back her disposable camera, which she quickly hands to Ben so he can take some more pictures. 

“That’s the plan,” she tells him. Ben’s already heading towards the stairs to the closed lodge to get his photos. “Gonna check out the view from the summit, then head back down so that guy there can get some donuts in him.”

“Daylight Donuts?”

“Yea, I think so.” She’s not really sure, Ben hadn’t given her the name. “The place on Main Street?”

“That’s the one. You two better head back down right quick if you’ve got your heart set on goin’ there, they close at noon.”

Rey thanks him and rushes over to Ben, to where he’s taking pictures, concentrating like it’s his mom’s fancy digital camera and not a disposable. “Come on, we gotta jet.” The words come out quickly as she takes the camera back and pulls him by the elbow towards the stairs. “Or else someone’s not gettin’ their precious donuts.”

******

“Oh, yea, I remember now. We hauled ass down that mountain.” Ben’s voice is content, he finishes with just a hint of laughter, and she’s glad of it. Rey still remembers his zip-off hiking pants, their oxygen-deprived breaths as they ran down the trail as fast as their legs would let them, how her hiking pack jostled back and forth as she ran. “Ya know, I’m a little impressed with us for the time we made back.”

“Even if it was closed when we got there?” Rey had felt so bad when they finally got there, knowing how much he hated it when his vacation requests got changed or rejected. They just stood in front of the locked door for a few minutes, the closed sign and posted hours taunting them. 

He must hear the regret in her voice. Ben reaches out, his hand going to squeeze her shoulder before he starts to rub the back of her neck. She wants to let her eyes shut and enjoy this, but she’s driving. “It won’t be closed today.”

Once they arrive, she finds a big enough parking spot a block behind the shop, in the gondola parking lot. “If that stupid thing had been here in 2003, we’d have gotten plenty of donuts,” Rey says as she shakes her fist at the gondolas going from almost right behind Daylight Donuts up to Peaks 7 and 8. 

Even at eleven-thirty in the morning, a half hour before they close for the day, there’s a couple of people in line waiting to order and the smell of fresh donuts still hanging in the air. When they step inside, Ben’s face is near orgasmic when the smells hit him, so much so that Rey notices. 

“Jesus, Ben, calm yourself.” She elbows him in the side gently. “This is a family establishment, and besides, they’re  _ just _ donuts.” 

“Donuts I’ve been wanting for fifteen years.”

_ Yea, as if I don’t know what it’s like to want something for fifteen years. _

“Next!”

“Well, here’s your chance. Go order ‘til your heart’s content.”

They end up with two bottomless cups of diner coffee, a half dozen donuts, and a gigantic apple fritter to share. 

“I’m all for reliving the past, but please tell me we aren’t hiking up to the summit because we didn’t get to last time? I might be more in shape that I was before, but this altitude is still fucking killer.”

“No, not that. But I’ve got plans, don’t you worry.”

XxXxX

_ Whitewater rafting. _ That’s what she has planned for them. They drive sixty miles down the highway to Buena Vista, having had just enough to time to eat their fill of donuts and get to the rafting meet-up point for 2pm. It’s not specifically something he’d missed out on before, just an activity they’d always talked about but never got around to booking.

There’s a guide and five more people in their raft. Usually the only activity he enjoys doing surrounded by strangers involves a freezing cold snowy football stadium, overpriced beers, and green and yellow face paint. But this… it’s fun. And exhilarating, and terrifying, and much more exhausting than he’d expected. He finds he doesn't mind the others so much. 

Rey has a habit of letting out these little yelps and hollers, high pitched excited squeals when they go through the more difficult rapids. Her reactions end up being his favorite part of the outing - along with how ridiculous they both look in their matching blue helmets and splash jackets.

They roll into Grand Junction around 8pm, and instead of trying to find someplace nice to eat, they head straight for Chipotle and get carryout. It's an earlier arrival at the back row of the Wal-Mart parking lot where they'll be overnighting, but compared to the first two days of the trip, today has been filled with some rather physically demanding activities. Neither comments on that, but neither of them complain either.

Rey turns on the old radio on the dinette table while they eat, tuning it to the local sports station she’d seen on a billboard earlier. The Colorado Rockies are playing that evening, but she keeps the volume low. Ben’s been talkative ever since they stopped the car, thanking her over and over for the trip and showing her the pictures from the Incline, whitewater rafting, and one of both their donuts. 

He won’t go as far to say that it’s comfortable, the dinette seat cushions are well sat upon after forty years, but what they’re doing right now, it’s comforting. Sitting together, having dinner, the ball game on low, eating fast food burritos. 

It’s something he thinks he could get used to.

“Where to tomorrow, captain?” He’s asked a half dozen times by now, and she either gives vague answers or says nothing at all. 

“Utah.”

_ No shit. _ That’s the next state between them and their destination. 

“That’s all you’re gonna give me?”

“Southwest corner.”

Ben thinks for a moment, putting his geography cap on. And then, he gets an idea and a grin grows on his face, a boyish one he seems to have been saving for this trip. “Zion?” 

She takes a bite of her burrito and nods. 

XxXxX 

Rey knew a lot of details about Ben Solo. 

The setting on the toaster he preferred. His order at the only Thai place in town he deemed acceptable. That he likes hoodies that zip-up so he can take them off without messing up his hair. The PIN number to his debit card and the passcode on his phone - both the last four digits of his parents’ home phone number. 

Somehow in nearly twenty years, she'd missed the fear of heights. Well, more specifically, the fear of heights when he’s not strapped into something. 

Roller coasters? Okay. 

The Angels Landing trail, with its one-person wide pathway, steep drop offs on both sides, and handrails drilled into the rock? _Not_ _okay._

“We could  _ die _ , Rey.” 

  
“We could freeze to death in December in Lambeau Field watching the Packers. Wouldn’t you rather die someplace beautiful, like this?”   
  
Silence. Clearly, she’s not convincing enough. It’s then that she realizes he isn’t just being overly cautious or giving her a hard time. He doesn’t move from where he’s frozen in place in front of a National Park Service warning sign.  _ Strenuous climb. Narrow route with cliff exposures. _ Up until this point, everything they’ve hiked on the trail has been easy, with the first part of the trail well-maintained with only a few switchbacks, and the next section, though a more difficult hike with more than twenty switchbacks, was still a nice, wide trail.    
  
“Come on, we’ll be fine,” she continues. “I promise. You can hold the chain with one hand and my hand with the other.”   
  
For some reason, that idea seems to persuade him a little more, and he reaches out for her hand. 

“Seriously?” he asks, a sheepish look on his face. She knows asking for help is not in his wheelhouse - last year, when Poe decided he wanted them all to do the Warrior Dash obstacle course for his birthday, Ben had refused help on each of the obstacles he got stuck on. Poe and Finn had long left them and kept going, and Rey had stayed back with him, yelling encouragements at him from the top of the muddy and slippery half pipe he needed to run up, and he'd refused to just grab her hand and let her help him. 

“Ben, I will give you a piggyback ride up this ridge if that's what it takes. I know you’re scared - don’t try and tell me you’re not - but look at how nice out it is.” She waves her hand around, as if she's showing off their perfect sunny day. “You’ll regret not seeing the view at the top.”

He finally takes a step, his way of saying he agrees. Still hand in hand, she leads him away from the sign and starts back on the trail. 

“It won’t work, ya know. The piggyback ride. You’re too short and my feet would just drag. You’d have to bridal carry me.”

_ He’s gotta be calming down now if he’s starting to crack jokes, _ she thinks. 

“Oh, ya, that’d make a nice call to the park service, eh?” Rey brings her free hand up to her ear like she's holding a phone. “Excuse me, uh, Mr. Park Ranger, sir, I was bridal carrying my best friend and we seem to have fallen down your mountain...” She tugs at his arm for him to keep moving and he follows cautiously.

XxXxX

The rest of the half mile hike is a slow go, Rey goes in front, one hand on whatever railing or chain is available, and other outstretched backwards towards him. He’s certain from his angle it looks like one of those Instagram photos, the ones with the girl leading the boy by the hand in astonishingly beautiful surroundings. 

He lets go of her hand when they finally reach the summit, and she walks forward a bit and sits. Ben joins her, reaches out and pulls her into his side, not letting go. She said it’d be worth it and, holy mother of god, it is. This is the first time he's let himself really look at the scenery, too concerned with hanging onto her hand and not accidentally looking down the drop offs. Below them, there’s a valley, lush and green with the Virgin River running down the middle, in stark contrast with the red rock canyon walls that rise sharply upwards. 

It’s the single most beautiful sight he’s ever seen, and having her right there next to him makes it all worthwhile. She's silent for a long time, they both are, as they take everything in, trying to memorize what pictures surely won't capture effectively. Rey stays leaning against him, pointing out things in the distance, or odd-shaped rock and trees that they can see far below them. 

They finally break apart when there’s a loud noise - pounding footsteps - behind them, and they turn around to see a young boy, no more than five or six years old, bounding towards them. The kid seems like he’s got no idea about the consequences of the cliffs and is moving at a pace way too fast for the small area the top. Quickly, Ben jumps up off the ground and moves forward, grabbing the boy under his arms and holding out from himself at arms’ length. 

“Whoa there, kid,” he warns. Over his shoulders her sees a pair of parents rushing up the trail andn older girl behind them, and he sets the boy back down on his feet. “Ya gotta put the brakes on or you’re gonna fly straight off the edge.”

Rey’s watching from a few steps back as the parents gather up their son, and thank him. The older daughter walks up to him, while her parents are busy trying to explain what happens when you fall down mountains to her brother, and she offers to take pictures of both of them. He agrees when he sees Rey nod at him, then pulls out his phone and begins explaining  _ everything _ to the girl. 

“Ben, get over here.” Rey’s got her hands on her hips, her weight on one leg, looking like she’s amused at him. Her gaze moves to the young girl. “Sweetheart, you’re how old? Thirteen?” Rey guesses. The girl nods and smiles, showing off a mouth full of shiny braces. “She knows how to work an iPhone camera, ya don’t gotta explain it to her.”

Moments later, with pictures taken and their last looks at the valley, he takes Rey’s hand and they head back down the trail. It’s every bit as terrifying on the descent as the ascent. 

They change out of their sweaty clothes while still parked at the trailhead lot, and once they’re back in town, Rey parks the Falcon where they’ll stay for the night. Their spot for dinner is only a few blocks walk down the road, a place that she picked out earlier while he was driving. She guides them to the Driftwood Lodge where it’s located, and Ben stops in the sidewalk when he sees the name of the restaurant - King’s Landing Bistro.

“Did you choose this restaurant only because of the Game of Thrones reference?” 

“…yes.” 

Ben pulls her into his side.  _ Again. That’s twice today _ . “You’re the best, seriously,” he says, looking down at her. “You think they serve bowls of brown?” 

He lets her go and takes the last few steps to the door, holding it open for her. Rey ducks under his arm, then turns to smile at him as she walks backwards into the restaurant. “I’d call you a nerd, but I’m secretly hoping for some Sansa-approved lemoncakes.”

XxXxX 

With their trip being planned on short notice, Rey had gotten lucky that she’d been able to find RV spots in the campgrounds along the way so far. Zion was a different story, though. The Watchman National Park campsite near the Springdale was booked solid, save for a couple of hike-in only spots they kept open, but the lady on the phone had assured Rey that there was no possible way to fit the RV on any of those sites. 

Luckily, when she called around to the local hotels, she was able to find one on the main drag with a last minute cancellation, and she immediately scooped the room up. 

It dawns on them both as soon as they enter the room, the real perk of staying in a hotel for a night - a shower with water that was actually hot and a hot water heater that held more than six measly gallons. There’s two double beds in the room, and Rey drops her duffle bag on the floor by the dresser, then plops down on the closest bed, rolling over to grab the remote off the nightstand. 

“You mind if I grab the first shower?” She looks up at him, leaning against the wall with his pajamas hung over his forearm, and stops flipping through channels, then notices what’s on the channel she’s landed on. 

“No problem.” Rey gestures towards the television with the remote, but from his angle he can't see the screen. “Twenty minutes or so of Ferris Bueller left. You know the end running scene is my favorite part.”

He doesn’t shut the door entirely, and a minute or two later she hears the water turn on and then Ben’s yelling from inside the shower, “This is amazing!” She has only a split second to wonder why, before he clarifies, “I can stand up completely straight!”

“Congrats!”, she manages to yell back, between her laughter. Picturing him in the shower in the Falcon has to be the least sexual shower fantasy of hers that he’s ever starred in - hunched over, complaining that the water doesn’t get warm enough or last long enough, constantly bumping his elbows against the walls. 

Ben finishes his shower just as Ferris is telling the audience to go home.  _ It’s over, _ Rey says out loud along with him. There’s still plenty of hot water left, and though she fits much better inside the shower in the Falcon, it still isn’t exactly roomy, or comfortable, or nearly as well-lit as a normal shower. Rey’s had three very brief lukewarm showers so far, so she gets clean quickly and then just stands underneath the spray for a good ten minutes, maybe a little more. 

When she finally dries off and changes, the room is dark, save for the bathroom light and the one above the hallway door, and there’s a Ben-sized lump on the far bed, rolled on its side away from her.  _ Twenty minutes and that boy is passed the fuck out.  _

Which is a blessing, since she’s stuck awkwardly glancing back and forth between the empty bed she’s thrown her things on, and the one next to it where Ben is sleeping, trying to make up her mind about which to crawl into. 

Really, it  _ should  _ be the empty one. 

There’s a million reasons for her to choose that one. Plenty of space, all the pillows. No waking up in the middle of the night to find that someone has pulled the blanket completely to their side.  _ Oh, and lets not forget that, despite having slept next to him three nights in a row, that he’s not my boyfriend. _

Three nights in a row of waking up in the morning to his large hand splayed across her stomach, holding her against him. Of feeling safe, warm, protected. Loved. 

_ Fuck that other bed. _

She plugs her phone into the charging cord on the nightstand between the beds, then pulls up the covers on the bed Ben’s already sleeping in, and climbs under. 

Rey wants to fall asleep next to him. She wants to wake up with him wrapped around her. 

And if that means ignoring the obviously empty bed and slipping in his because he’s already asleep?  _ Well, I’m sure I can make up something if he actually has the balls to ask about it tomorrow.  _

XxXxX

Ben is finally ready to admit that this trip with Rey has turned out to be a lot more fun than he assumed it would be - even if you include what he’s counting as numerous brushes with death on that Angels Landing trail she took him on yesterday. As they left the little town outside Zion National Park that morning, he knows that very soon their trip is coming to a close - there’s just a night somewhere in Nevada and then a night in Anaheim left, they’ll meet the buyer the following morning. He’s definitely looking forward to the comforts of his own home and not being stuck in the small space inside the Falcon, not feeling like he’s shoved in a sardine can, but he’s not ready to be done with being with Rey. Even with the tight space inside the RV, they’ve fallen into a rhythm, whether it's figuring out how to cook together, or clean up, or simply how to lounge around and still share what little space they have.

His thoughts go back to last night, at the hotel. He couldn’t get to sleep - every place they’d stayed so far was close to the interstate and there’d been plenty of road noise. Springdale, Utah and State Highway 9 were too quiet for their own good. He was still awake to hear Rey turn shower turn off and her movement in the bathroom. Her footfalls as she walked around the room, the audible clicks of light switches and the latching of the deadbolt. And then silence for a moment until she pulled the covers back on his bed and climbed in. He’d shoved his fist in mouth to keep quiet. There was a perfectly good, completely empty bed less than four feet away and she’s  _ choosing _ to be in his bed instead. 

Ben wasn’t sure how soon he got to sleep after she joined him, but it was still pitch black outside the next time he opened his eyes. He rolled over, the blue digital numbers on the clock reading 2:38AM. Rey’s right there next to him, same as a few hours earlier, visible in the little bit of light from the parking lot that comes in through the curtains. She mumbled a little nonsense in her sleep as he scooted himself closer and pulled him against him, tucking her flush against his body. He figured it was safe, she’d have no way of knowing that he did this consciously, not from a place of instinct while he slept. When he woke up that morning, his arms were empty and Rey was gone - grabbing coffee for the both of them according to the note she’d left. 

She hadn’t brought up the bed situation that morning when they left, not as if he actually expected her to, and he decides not to touch it.  _ Not yet, _ he tells himself.  _ Soon. _ On this trip there’s been a lot of quiet time, spent driving or sitting in the passenger seat, when he’s had nothing else to think about except his feelings for the infuriatingly perfect-for-him woman who’s only arm’s length away. 

_ Perfect for me, _ Ben thinks,  _ but Rey’s definitely not perfect. Twenty years of friendship and I’m certain of that. _ She’s impulsive, and hates being wrong, and she'll talk anyone's ear off if they give her the chance. On more than one occasion he’s seen her leave her grocery store cart nowhere near the return corral. She orders drinks at Starbucks with names long enough to be considered prose, and talks way too loudly into drive-thru speakers. He once went back to Culver’s later and apologized about it. She steals his food right off his plate when he’s not looking, or sometimes even when he is - he thinks of a trip to IKEA where he got up for a minute to grab more napkins, and when he returned half his Swedish meatballs were missing and she had a guilty look on her face. Rey also leaves her stuff everywhere, so not only is his car, his house, and his backyard constant reminders of memories they’ve made there, but there’s physical reminders there too.

He’ll tell her, he’s decided that much, and now he just needs to figure out when and how. 

Ben files away those ideas for the time being and tries to enjoy the drive. He starts seeing signs off the highway - Las Vegas this many miles, Henderson that many miles, until...

Lake Mead

Hoover Dam

Use US-93

_ She’s not, is she? Nah. This is just the only major road from anywhere in Utah to Vegas, of course that sign is there. _ There’s plenty of RV parks in the metropolitan Las Vega area, a ton, so he should have no reason to think she’s driving him to  _ that _ RV park. 

_ Their _ RV park. Where everything changed. 

Rey continues driving towards Las Vegas, then south on 515. Luckily, she somehow doesn’t notice how anxious he’s getting, probably because he’s sitting on his right hand to avoid ringing them together. Ben decides he’s gonna try to rest his eyes to calm down, and it manages to do the trick for a little while. 

“Alright, we’re here!” Her voice sounds cheerful, as usual, and he opens his eyes hoping to see a KOA sign. 

He looks to his left just in time to read the sign: Lake Mead RV Village - Echo Bay. 

_ Fuck.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've not been to Daylight Donuts in Breck, it's worth the trip (I may have driven out of the way to stop there a few times). 
> 
> Much love, as always, to my dear friend T, who is the one to blame for getting me to end this on a bit of a cliffy.


	4. Chapter 4

Summer, 2004

Ben could count the number of times he and Rey were alone in the Falcon on one hand. Alone to go off hiking, swimming, or for ice cream while his parents stayed at the campground, that happened much more often.

They had arrived in Las Vegas the day before, taking in some of the more family friendly city sights - a Blue Man Group show and riding that roller coaster on top of the Stratosphere over and over until Ben threatened to throw up over the side. Even though he’s old enough now to actually go into a casino and gamble, and while his father offers the option up to him, it’s not that enticing. It’s not like he’s got much money to blow on slot machines or looking completely out of his league at a card table - his job at the pretzel place at the mall doesn’t pay _that_ much. It pays just a touch above minimum wage and all the misshapen pretzels he can eat. And besides, Rey’s still got two years before she’s able to play any of the games, and it’s much more amusing to watch her reactions to the various street performers and the fountains at the Bellagio, and how much she loves all the lights and neon. Even at eighteen, Ben thought the whole place was a kitschy trap for idiots to lose their money, but watching Rey find amusement in some of the admittedly not-so-horrible parts is well worth the trip.

That evening, back at the campground, his parents let them know they were taking the Gold Wing into Vegas on Saturday, the next morning, for some event of Lando’s happening later in the day, and they wouldn’t be back until Sunday around lunchtime. The planned to leave him and Rey behind at the Lake Mead RV Village campsite with twenty bucks for pizza delivery and one rule: don't drive the Falcon anywhere. “There should be plenty to amuse you two here for a day and a half,” his mom says. “I’m sure you’ll just spend most of your day at the beach anyways.”

Han and Leia drive off Saturday morning, and it's fine at first. Two less people in the Falcon makes it much roomier, and his mom isn't there to tell him to stop biting his nails. But Rey’s there and she's… _distracting._ He's fully aware he likes her, probably should let that feeling slip up a notch to love, if he's truthful. This summer is worse than the rest; her body’s had the audacity to grow hips and breasts and she's also decided that one piece bathing suits aren't cool anymore. He feels like a perv as he tries not to stare at her, but he can’t help himself, so he hazards glances at her while she’s occupied with other things. The suit she's got herself in today isn't as small as some he’s seen on other people, but it’s not on other people, it’s on _her,_ and the straps are just these strings that tie at her hips and her back and…

“When’d you do _that?_ ” He doesn't say what _that_ is, but he sees her glance down at the piercing in her belly button and knows she's picked up on his meaning.

The hurt in his voice must come across as anger, as she's immediately defensive. “What? You don't like it?” He doesn't answer. “I went with Rose and Paige on my birthday.”

Oh, Ben _likes_ it, that's for sure. He likes it a lot. His first thought is to step forward to get a closer look, press his thumbs into her hip bones and kiss the freckles dotting her stomach, run his tongue around the barbell with her birthstone in it.

He feels left out, she usually told him everything. _Shit, too much at times._ He’s got an excellent understanding of the menstrual cycle thanks to her overshares. But all he can think about now is how her birthday was three months ago; he'd taken her out for ice cream like she'd wanted and she didn't say a damn thing to him about getting her belly button pierced.

“No, it's fine.”

There’s a tenseness in the air now, something which is new and unfamiliar for them, and they avoid each other for the rest of the morning. Ben spends a few hours under the awning with his headphones in and his Game Boy Advance, while Rey alternates between swimming at the RV park pool and laying in the chaise lounge in front of the Falcon.

Eventually, he gets hungry, retreating inside to the air-conditioning and fixing up lunch for the both of them. Yea, it’s been an unusual morning, but she’s still his best friend and he’s not going to make things even more weird by making mac & cheese for himself and not for her as well, just because she pierced her belly button and didn’t tell him.

When Rey finally comes inside, he’s sitting at the table waiting for the pasta to finish boiling, and working on finishing up the crossword puzzle his mom abandoned in a huff yesterday.

“I’m bored, Ben,” she whines, lazily toweling at her hair as she walks up the stairs. “We should go do something.”

He looks up at her. “Like what?” He thinks about suggesting they just hang out in the Falcon and watch a movie. It’s July in Nevada and it’s hot as balls out.

“I dunno. We could go somewhere.” Rey plops down on the dinette seat across from him, continuing to dry herself off.

“You heard what my dad said. _Falcon’s gotta stay here, kid,_ ” he repeats in his best Han Solo impersonation.

“Oh, come on. We could go somewhere this afternoon and be back in a few hours and they’ll never know. I’ll put some rocks down so we can park the Falcon exactly where it is now. You’re not scared to drive the it without your dad’s supervision, are ya?”

“No. No, it’s not that.”

“Then what’s the matter?” She sighs, standing to hang up her towel in the small bathroom and then sitting back down, this time on the same side of the bench seat as him. She’s still in her swimsuit and he stares straight ahead, like the calendar hung on the side of the cabinet is riveting. She leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder and he can feel her wet hair making his shirt damp. “It’ll be fun, Benny. I promise. Please?”

_Fuck_. He can never take it when she gets that pleading tone in her voice, or when she calls him Benny.

What’s a ten letter word for a girl whose got Ben Solo wrapped around her little finger? _Rey Jackson._

“Fine,” he agrees, folding the crossword in half and pushing it away from him, “Get dressed and let's go if we’re gonna do this.”

How about a seven letter word for a guy who’ll crumble under even the slightest bit of peer pressure? _Ben Solo._

“Oh, yes, yes, yes!” She stands up halfway then throws her arms around his neck. Rey must not notice how her breasts, covered in nothing but a thin layer of fabric press against him, so close to his face. Ben notices, and more importantly, his dick notices too.

The timer on the stove starts beeping and Rey jumps away from him, mumbling something about getting changed and letting him finish lunch.

Most importantly, Rey leaves before she can notice the tent in his jeans, just skips off to the back to change and give him plenty of time to think about anything that won’t get him any more turned on - his math teacher, when that kid in swim class puked in the pool, various scenes from Requiem for a Dream - _that_ does the trick.

Rey’s dressed when she emerges again, thank Jesus, but it’s in tiny jean shorts and a white baby doll t-shirt with fine red stripes, matching red Chucks on her feet. It’s better, he can deal with it. She takes the bowl of mac & cheese he offers her and sits across from him at the table.

“Alright, where ya taking me?” That’s the real question, he doesn’t know what’s around so he says the first thing that pops into this head.

“The Hoover Dam?” He opens his mouth again to rationalize suggesting the tourist trap, that it’s close, the road the campground is on goes right there, and he bets there’s tons of RV parking for the beast, but he doesn’t get the chance.

“Awesome! It’s supposed to be a bit of a tourist trap, but I’m sure we’ll be able to make it fun.”

Hours later, when they get back to the campsite, Rey hops out and helps direct Ben to exactly where to park based on the rocks she lined up before they left. They agree to order pizza for dinner with the money his mom left, and as Rey calls in the order, he gets the campsite set up to how it was before - awning pulled out, chairs and picnic table under it, and the decorative striped tarp under those.

“You were right, ya know.” Ben’s voice is possibly the more content it’s been in days. He doesn’t even care that she’s put a Sublime CD in the portable stereo, he’s even been enjoying listening to her hum along to Santeria and What I Got.

“Hmm?” is all she replies, mouth full of her last bite of pizza.

“Today was fun, and they’ll never find out.” He feels lighter, more relaxed than he did that morning. Something about deciding to break the rules and go do some silly touristy shit did wonders for his mood. They’d spent more time at the dam than he thinks any other visitors did that entire day - read all the informational signs, walking across the pathway multiples times, determined to see the view of Lake Mead and the Colorado River from as many different vantage points as possible. Ben’s sure the both of them are experts in all of the various facts and figures about it. “What now?” he asks as she goes inside to throw away their paper plates.

And then, then Rey goes and throws him another curveball.

First, he notices that she's thrown on a hoodie over her t-shirt - _his_ System of a Down hoodie, it's way too large and goes down mid-thigh on her. The hem hangs past the bottom of her shorts and it’s not hard to imagine her simply not wearing anything else underneath it.

Second, as if that wasn’t enough, his eyes almost fall out of his head when she returns from inside with a bottle of his dad’s whiskey in hand, so casual, and announces, “I’ve got an idea.”

_“Rey.”_

“Wanna sit on the roof and watch the sunset?” Rey’s got a devious little smile on her face, like she’s as pleased as punch that she thought of this.

Normally, he’d love the idea of watching the sunset with her, and he’s surprised she’s suggested something so overtly romantic. But she’s slowly swinging the bottle of Jim Beam back and forth at him, and that’s the aspect that’s got him worried. He’s never drank before, at all, and he’s not sure how he’ll handle it. Ben’s afraid he’ll get drunk from two shots, or fall off the top of the RV, or throw up, or worse - tell her how he feels.

“We really shouldn't.”

“We already broke one rule today, what's another? We can just have a little. It’s already open so your dad’s never gonna notice. Aren't you even a little curious?” She pauses for a second, a glint in her eyes that he recognizes, and she changes tactics. “What're you so scared of?”

He doesn't answer any of her questions aloud. Oh, Ben is curious, but not about how much the alcohol will sting his throat. No, he's curious about how Rey’s skin feels against his, what her mouth tastes like. As for being scared, the truth is that he's scared of everything to do with her, how she makes his brain feel like pudding and how he's incapable of rational thought in her presence.

And because he's incapable of rational thought around her, he's quick in his reply. “Fine, you win.”

Five minutes later and they’re both on the roof of the Falcon, sitting cross-legged on a colorful blanket his mom bought at a Mexican folk art market in San Antonio, the bottle of amber-colored liquid sitting in between them, daring either of them to go first.

All of a sudden, it seems like maybe Rey has lost her nerve. Sometimes she has enough confidence for the both of them, but some days he’s reminded that she’s just sixteen, and he’s just barely eighteen, and they’ve really both got no clue what they’re doing. So he saves her.

“Rock, paper, scissors? Loser takes first drink.”

She nods, and they ready their fists. They’ve done this enough they don’t need to discuss if they throw their choice on _three_ , or one beat afterwards. It’s one beat afterwards - Rey throws scissors and Ben throws paper. _Fuck._

“Oh, how about this? I’ve got an idea that’ll make this more fun.” The mischievous look on Rey’s face should probably be Ben’s warning sign that this could possibly be a bad idea. “Person waiting asks the person drinking a question, no outs. You have to answer. Sort of like truth or dare, minus the dares.”

Once again, rational thinking be damned, he agrees. She knows all his secrets, save for the one big one, so screw it.

He has the bottle in hand and unscrews the top. “Do your worst,” he says to egg her on, before taking a quick drink. Rey lets out a giggle at how his face scrunches up at the taste.

“What’d you and Shelly do in the closet at Dave’s party?”

He almost spits out the whiskey. “ _That’s_ the question you’re gonna start with?” he finally manages to cough out.

“I know you, Ben. I don’t need to ask easy things. Your favorite color is navy blue, your favorite food are the cheese curds and butter burgers from Culver’s. Your favorite movies are War Games and The Sandlot, but you tell everyone it’s Fight Club.” Rey pauses, grabs the bottle from him and smells the liquid through the opening, her face scrunching up like his had. “So, what’d you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing,” she repeats, and he can tell she doesn't believe him for a second. “You stared at the darkness for seven minutes.”

“Okay, so not _nothing_ , but we didn’t makeout, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then what?”

“Fine,” he sighs. “I’ll tell you, but you can’t laugh.”

She holds up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“We talked about Kill Bill.” Rey stares. “What? She’s in my trig class and it was a continuation of what we’d talked about that day. Her crush on Tucker is obvious, I wasn’t gonna makeout with her.”

“How chivalrous of you.” She swirls the bottle a few times, like he’s seen his mom do with glasses of wine before, then takes a drink, an awful look on her face as she sticks her tongue out. “Ask away, Solo.”

The question he’s been mulling over since breakfast rushes past his lips before he can stop it.

“Why didn’t you tell me you got your belly button pierced?”

“You’re really that upset about it?” Her voice is surprised, but softens when she realizes he sounds more let down than pissed. “I thought you said you liked it earlier.”

“I _like_ it, I just… shit, I’m gonna sound like a loser here. You just usually tell me everything, alright?”

Her gaze immediately drops to her lap. “I wanted to tell you, I did, but then…” Rey pauses a moment, then lifts her eyes back to his. “I mentioned inviting you to Rose and Paige and they, like, ragged on me about girl time, and _why are you always hanging out with Ben anyways, it’s not like he’s your boyfriend._ ” She sounds just like the twins when she tries to.

“And they’re right, I’m not your boyfriend, you don’t have to tell me shit. But you always do.”

“I felt so bad, Ben, I swear to god.” She reaches over and grabs his hands, and fuck, he’s so surprised he nearly jumps. “Next piercing I get, you’ll be right at my side,” Rey promises, squeezing both of his hands before letting go.

“Good, I better be.” He’s… less upset than before, he still wishes he could’ve been there, offered to hold her hand or something. But now, just the knowledge that she wanted him there makes his stomach do little flips. “My turn.”

She take another quick drink from the bottle before she passes it over. He brings the bottle to his lips and he’s not sure if it’s the whiskey that’s working on warming him up or the fluttery feeling he gets when her eyes never leave his face as she watches him drink. Ben’s not sure if he likes the taste, but he’s not making faces anymore.

“Are you nervous to go to school in a few weeks?”

“Nervous? No. I’ll still be in Madison, just an extra couple miles away. It’s not like I’m going to Stevens Point or something. Why? You worried that I’ll go away to college and forget all about little Rey, still with two more years of high school to go?”

She’s silent. One glance at how she’s staring at her hands in her lap, and he realizes that she _is_ worried.

“Rey. I could never forget you.” It must be the alcohol that breaks the dam, allows these words to keep flowing from his mouth. “Not only because I’ll be in town, but because you’re _you_ , and… you know what? Fuck it, I’m just gonna say it. I like you, and I mean, I _like you_ like you.” In the dwindling sunlight, he watches her face as her eyes roam his, trying to make sense of things, and he reaches across the small gap between them and takes her hand in his as he waits for her reply. “Would you please put me out of my misery and say something?”

“I like you too, Ben.” There’s a smile on her face that’s bright enough to defeat the sunset. “Um, like that.”

“Really?”

“Yea.”

Ben’s envisioned how his confession would go, along with her reaction, thousands of times, but sitting on top of the Falcon taking swigs out a bottle of his dad’s whiskey was never included in those daydreams. Even though his confessions always included her returning his feelings, he’s grossly unprepared for it when it happens in real life. It’s Rey who breaks the silence finally. “Ben, I think you should kiss me now.”

Her suggestion snaps him back into reality and the look on his face changes, closer to when they’re partners in euchre and they’ve perfected how to read each other. “Oh, I should?”

Ben hopes she can’t see the raging mess of hormones and nerves inside of him, only the false confidence he’s trying to exude. That she can’t tell he’s worried about not knowing what he’s doing, or if his braces will somehow make this weird. If Rey sees through his charade, she doesn’t say a thing. When he reaches a hand up to cup her cheek, she nuzzles her face into his palm, scooting herself closer until their knees touch. He catches her sneak a single glance at his mouth before he closes the gap between them.

Rey's lips are smooth against his, and sweet, from that chapstick she puts on almost religiously. They take their time, figuring each other out, but eventually fall into a rhythm, a give and take that seems almost practiced. When she opens her mouth for him, everything else drops away, the noise from other campers or the highway, the buzz of power generators. All he knows is he loves the taste of whiskey on her tongue, the feeling of her taking tight fistfuls of his hair in her hands, and how smiles against his mouth. His hand goes beneath her borrowed hoodie and around her back, holding her close to him, and he feels her melt further into the kiss when his fingers find the sliver of exposed skin between her t-shirt and shorts. Ben decides right then that this is his favorite thing to do.

When they finally come up for air, the last evidence of the sun is hidden beneath the horizon.

He leans his forehead against hers, able to feel that she's just as flushed as him. “We missed the sunset, Rey.”

She lets out a soft laugh, and shakes her head slightly. He’s sure she’s rolling her eyes at him as well. “Good thing it happens everyday, eh?”

“Wanna head inside?” She nods in agreement as she pulls away, grabbing the bottle of whiskey that they definitely cannot forget on top of the RV.   

The moment they’re back inside the Falcon, Rey practically pounces on him. Backing him up against the closet door, she goes up on her tiptoes with her arms around his neck, and pulls his lips to hers. Her kiss _burns,_ without the pretense or nerves like the last one, and he stops wondering about why she seems so practiced, and starts letting himself enjoy this.

Her fingers on his scalp.

The little gasp that escapes her lips when he kisses his way across her jawline and down her neck.

How perfect her ass feels cupped his hands, how desperately she tries to rolls her hips against him.

His whine at the loss of contact when she goes back down off her tip-toes.

The way his heart speeds up when she laces her fingers through his and pulls him back towards the bed - and how it threatens to short circuit when he realizes what’s probably going to happen.

How he sucks in a breath when she plants wet kisses up his torso while working his shirt off, then pushes him to sit on the edge of the mattress.

The twinkle in her eyes and the way her chest moves with each breath as she lets his hoodie fall from her shoulders, her gaze never leaving him.

His whole world feeling like it’s shattering when she crawls into his lap and pulls her t-shirt off.

“Rey, I… I've never done this before and -”

Her hands find his face, her thumbs smooth across his cheeks and she kisses him gently - a drastic change from her assault on his mouth in the hallway minutes ago. “Me neither. It’s okay to be nervous, I'm nervous too.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“More than anything, Benny, please…”

XxXxX

Summer 2018

The next morning, he’d woken up with her in his arms, naked and tangled up in the sheets on the bed his parents usually slept in.  

_And now we are back here again._ She has to realize what she’s doing. Too much is similar to how it was that day. She still wears tiny denim shorts, and while she cooks dinner she’s singing along to Sublime playing through the car stereo, like she really means it, like she wasn’t eight when Bradley Nowell died. Rey finishes up their dinner while Ben’s outside, getting the awning and lawn chairs set up in case they decide to sit outside later.

They fall into a normal comfortable silence as they eat, though for Ben it’s anything but comfortable. Maybe he’ll say something tonight. _Yea,_ he thinks, _that’ll work. It’ll even be sort of sweet since we’re here, of all places._ He could start with talking about the trip back home, plans for the rest of the summer, possibly casually mention going to a ballgame and tell her he wants it to be an actual date - not just how they call their outings _dates_ sometimes. _Or is that not enough?_ It’s been a long time coming, as far as he’s concerned, so perhaps a weekend away would be more appropriate for them. Maybe something more. They could go down to Chicago, or maybe head up north to the Apostles, rent a cabin and some kayaks and spend one of the last warm summer weekends kayaking around the islands and sitting around a campfire.

If he lets himself continue riding this enjoyable train of thought, he’ll have vacations planned out for years to come. His brain gets off the rails on tangents a lot, and he doesn’t realize how long he’s been absently eating his mac & cheese while planning vacations, what they’d buy at IKEA for their place when she moves in, how happy his mother will be when he tells her he needs his grandmother’s ring. Ben is in his head for long enough that he doesn’t notice Rey’s restlessness, until she finally gets fed up with the silence.

“Ben, why aren't we together?”

Ben almost thinks he heard her wrong, what with how nonchalantly she brings it up.

“Why aren't… you really need to ask that?”

“I'm tired of tap dancing around it.” Rey pushes her half-finished bowl off to the side and sits back in the booth. “It's all I can think of being in this space with you.”

Maybe it’s all the history they’ve shared, in this RV and elsewhere, or maybe it’s years upon years spent aching for someone that was close yet still out of reach… he’s unsure of why he snaps back at her question so harshly.

“We aren't together because of Matt, and Wex. Because of Julia and Zoe, Logan and that other Matt. Do you get the idea or do I need to list off all your exes since eleventh grade?”

She replies back with the same accusatory tone as him. “Go ahead, but what about you? What about Pava, Bazine, that Lucy girl? Do I need to remind you about Hux, or the same Logan that I dated?” She pauses, only continuing when he doesn't say anything back. “I love you, Ben. I have _always_ loved you. But you came back from college three months into the school year with this… _woman_ on your arm. Was that Beth? I think it was. English lit major, a junior, off campus apartment, curves and legs for days. I couldn't compete with that, not at sixteen, with my summer growth spurt and knobby knees, my restricted drivers license. I know you'd left before we made whatever we had official but I just thought… and then you bring this girlfriend home for Thanksgiving dinner and I've gotta sit there and pass her casserole dishes and make small talk as if I'm not fucking broken inside. So yea, if you thought that I was gonna sit around and be lonely whenever you dated someone, then you didn't really know me too well, did you?”

“Please, I'm sorry, I don't want to argue.” He pushes a hand through this hair and settles back against the cushion, mirroring Rey’s position. Of course, he remembers everything too - that shitty Thanksgiving dinner when he brought home the first woman at college who’d even looked his way. He remembers Rey’s feelings and heartbreak written plainly across her face as Beth asked her question after question about high school, as if purposely trying to cement her own position. There wasn’t a second Beth appearance later at Christmas, Ben broke up with her not a week after Thanksgiving. It didn’t matter, Rey left their joint family Christmas get-together right after dinner, heading over to her new girlfriend’s house, and things were never one hundred percent the same after that. “Believe me, I know you very well and never expected you to wait around for me. We just have piss poor timing, that's all. That's why we aren't together.”

They’re both quiet for a few beats.

“Are you in love with me, Ben?”

“Yes.” His reply is quick, without any hesitation, and he’s bolstered by the smile it causes on her, so he continues. “That's the easiest question I've ever been asked. Of course, I’m in love you.” He shakes his head, laughing a bit under his breath. “I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen.”

“Then, I’ll ask you again - why aren't we together? Right now.” She sits up straight again, elbows on the table as she rests her chin on her fists. “You're single, and I'm single, for the first time since we were in our teens and --”

Rey barely has time to register what’s happening, Ben surges forward and crashes his lips to hers. It’s rough at first, all teeth and small bites and hands shoved into each other’s hair, they’re both a little amped up from what was shaking up to be an argument. When he nips at her lower lip, a shiver runs through her, and she moans her contentment against his mouth. They’re both much better at this than the last time, and Rey soon runs her tongue across Ben’s lips, begging for entrance, and he opens for her, never one to deny her anything. What’s not different is how quickly they get lost in each other, back recesses of their minds not fully remembering what the other likes, instead cataloguing the new things they learn - how Rey leans in a little further when he runs his fingers along her jawline, or Ben’s rumbling almost growl when she capture his lip between her teeth and pulls, or the sinfully sweet moans Rey makes when he tugs on her hair.

When they finally pull apart, their expressions match, both trying to catch their breath while searching the other’s face for a reaction, or for them to say something. He didn’t even notice that Rey had moved up to the bench seat, sitting up on her knees to get her closer to him.

It must be Rey’s turn to make the sudden move this time, as she reaches out, taking his hand from off the nape of her neck and joining it with with hers on the table. She looks up at him through her eyelashes, large hazel eyes bore into his. Her voice is no louder than a whisper, but in the quiet of the RV, with just the hum of the generator and Sublime serving as background noise, it registers in Ben’s head like she’s screaming.

“Take me to bed, Ben.”


	5. Chapter 5

This morning, like the past few, Rey wakes up to Ben pressed against her, the extra pillows thrown either down the hallway or to the end of the bed where her feet don't quite reach. But this time, she doesn’t feel the urge to covertly finagle her way out of his embrace, nor does she need to search back through her fourteen year old memories to try to remember what his hands feel like on her body. 

She has new memories of that now, fresh ones, from just hours ago instead of years.

******

The rush of excitement she felt when he took her hand in his, leading her down the hallway, opposite from the last time they did this, when she had tried her damnedest to feign confidence. 

A bit of calm stillness, when he sat on the edge of the mattress and bent over to untie his shoes. She pushed his hand away and climbed up into his lap. Shoes forgotten, his hands found her hips as her thighs bracketed his legs, and she placed a single kiss against the side his mouth then moved down his jawline, nipping and sucking at the sensitive skin until he was a squirming mess beneath her. His fingers dug into the soft flesh at the waist of her shorts, ten fiery points of contact that she’s sure will leave marks. 

_ Good. _ It was exactly what she had wanted. 

“Rey, you’re gonna kill me here,” he managed to get out, voice raspy. 

He watched the devious smile he could recognize a mile away flit across her face. “Oh no, love, I’ve got you.” She slid off his lap, his eyes never leaving her as she crouched between his knees, but then bent lower and starting to work on removing his sneakers and socks. A little flash of confusion in his eyes - clearly he thought her next move would be to go down on him, what with her knelt between his legs like that.

“You’re not nervous this time, are you, Benny?” His tennis shoes bounced on the floor behind her as she tossed them backwards. He smiled at the pet name, she’s the only one who still called him that.

Later, her confusion as he leaned over the edge of the mattress, left hand fishing for his wallet in the back pocket of his discarded jeans, until she realized what he was searching for.  _ Silly boy. _

“You don’t need those,” Rey quickly commented, grabbing his right arm to pull him back up to her.

“You’re... okay with that?” She tried not to snicker at the hope evident in his eyes.

Rey reached out, hand finding his cheek to hold his gaze to her. “I’m not some fling you picked up at a bar after a home game, am I?” He shook his head, and she leaned in, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth before she spoke again. “I didn’t think so. I’m on birth control, which you know… So no, Ben, you don’t need that.” She takes the still-wrapped condom from his hand, tossing it back down to the floor before she turned to face him. “I want to really feel you, and I want you to come inside me, then I want to be able to feel you drip down my thighs as I fall asleep in your arms. Is that okay?”

“ _ Is that okay? _ ” He quirked an eyebrow up, and almost laughed out his reply. “How can you be so filthy yet so romantic at the same time?”

“I’m quite a talented lady, Ben, you’ll see.”

******

With how Ben is positioned behind her, she knows he can’t see the smirk on her face when she thinks back on the prior night. That, and the fact that it wasn’t a drunken one-off thing, like she’s imagined would most likely happen at some point. No, she has a very good feeling about this. About their turning point. Sure, they sort of half-angrily confessed their feelings across the dinette table at first, but later… later was different. Later was how he looked at her, his love shown to her in his exploring touches, in words whispered against her skin like a prayer. 

Finally, she wiggles out of his arms, simultaneously thirsty yet also needing to pee. After using the bathroom and grabbing a big glass of water, Rey starts to make coffee, and feels Ben’s arms around her from behind as she measures out the coffee grounds.

“This is something I can get used to,” he says, his breath warm on her neck, as he places a kiss just below her ear. She's in the clean pair of panties and t-shirt she threw on last night, never one to be able to get comfortable sleeping naked. His hands run up the length of her thighs and under the hem of her Badgers t-shirt, playing at the elastic on her underwear. 

“There's no time,” she says. “You know that. We slept late and there's only enough time left for a coffee and getting on the road.”

“I know, but we aren’t meeting up with the guy until tomorrow morning, remember? What’s the rush?” Rey can heat his feet shuffle on the floor as he tries to scoot closer to her. “You got a hot date in the city that I don’t know about?”

”Actually, I do. His name is Mickey, and he’s, well, he’s a mouse.” Behind her, Ben groans. “ _ Someone _ promised me a quick Disneyland trip and I’m gonna hold him to his promises.”

He grumbles something under his breath, pouty as she takes his hands off her. “Ben, don't think I don't want to. There's plenty of time for that.” She turns around and puts a mug of coffee in his hands. Two bagels pop out of the toaster as if on cue, and she plucks them out quickly, sitting at dinette afterwards. 

They talk about the plans for Disneyland and afterwards, and Ben waits until there’s a lull in conversation to ask what Rey supposes is the question of the day. 

“I didn't want to ask last night and just get some post-sex blissed out answer but… what do you want this to be, Rey?”

“Everything.” She’s in the middle of loading up the second half of her bagel with even more peanut butter. Not even stopping to set the knife down, she looks up from her plate and doesn't skip a beat when she answers. “You've always been everything. Except now I don't have to share you or hear any more stories about the person you’re dating.”

“Good.  _ Everything  _ is about what I had in mind, too.”

XxXxX

Alright, with everything that had happened the night prior, Ben sort of forgot that one of the chips he bargained with in the very beginning, when Rey had asked if there was anywhere off-limits, had been a trip to Disneyland would be fine.  _ Give a guy a damn break. _ It was practically his dream for a decade and a half to wake up to see Rey, making breakfast in his kitchen without pants on - of course he’s gonna forget about some park filled with spinning teacups and screaming children. His parents took them once before, the first time she came along for a road trip, but both of them hardly remembered it. 

He quickly had to add the image of Rey in mouse ears eating a giant pretzel shaped like Mickey to his list of favorites. 

Not  _ those _ favorites, mind you, those were a different list he’s got tucked away. But a list of his favorite times around him when she’s been genuinely happy - state fair Ferris wheel rides after dark when everything is lit up, the baseball season’s home opener. Or, when he was caller 41 and not lucky number 40, so instead of seeing Mumford & Sons front row, he drove over to the park next to the outdoor venue they were performing at. They ate takeout shrimp lo mein and when Ben could make out the song, he’d play it on his phone. 

The next morning, when they arrive back in Anaheim from last night’s RV park the next town over, their first stop - okay, second stop because Rey wanted a strawberry shake from In-n-Out first, was the Enterprise rental car dealer. Since they didn’t tow a car, they needed some way to get around the city and to the airport before they flew back home on a red eye that same night. Rey’s eyes had almost fallen out when Ben told her how much they were being charged for not even a full day, but there was no other way about it.

The car rental lot is next door to the Wal-mart where he’d agreed to meet the buyer. They’re both quiet as they go through the motions, gathering up personal items to transfer over to the Chevy Equinox parked in the neighboring spot.

“At least we won’t have a hard time finding parking spots anymore,” Rey comments, referring to the much smaller SUV they’ve rented and Ben’s frustrations with every parking lot they’ve been in during the trip. 

He knows she’s trying to be funny, that she senses something is off, what with how quiet he’s been since she went in to get the rental car. 

It’s just, all of a sudden, it’s getting very real. The road trip was almost a surreal Schrodinger's RV escape, except he’s the cat and the Falcon is the box.

_ Is this what cold feet feel like?  _

It feels like he’s been fired from a job, what with how he’s going through cabinets and drawers, putting family and personal items into a cardboard bankers box. Rey skirts around him, gathering up their blankets and pillows, duffel bags and clothes from the past couple days - leaving Ben to care for the items that are much more personal. In the back of the junk drawer, he pulls out postcards from various locations: Bryce Canyon National Park, the St. Louis Arch, Roswell, New Mexico. It doesn’t make much sense, but he grabs the his mother’s handwritten instructions off the microwave, carefully peeling the four pieces of tape from each corner. Maybe because it’s funny -  _ 1.) no foil (Ben, I swear to Christ) 2.) clean up your own mess. _ In the glovebox, he pulls out a book of maps of the counties of Wisconsin and old National Parks passes. Ben looks at the dashboard and shakes his head as he takes the Hula girl with her ukulele off the dashboard, her swishy plastic grass skirt swirling around as the suction cups pull off the plastic. He only half-remembers the week of spring break he spent at this grandparents’ house in third grade, when his parents went to Maui for their tenth anniversary, but he would never forget this stupid little hula girl his dad brought back.

He sets her carefully in the box and while he’s giving the driver’s area one last look-over is when he sees them - the pair of silver dice on a chain that dangle from a hook in the shelf above the dashboard, about where the rear view mirror would be on a normal vehicle. Ben has no clue where his father got them from, but he can’t recall a single drive - not even in town for repairs - when Han didn’t wrap his hand around the pair, close his eyes for a short moment, before letting go and setting off on wherever they were headed. He remembers watching the dice lean to one side or the other depending on the direction the road curved, or when they’d get into a rhythm like those perpetual motion balls that businessmen keep on their desks in movies.

The moment he grabs them, there’s a loud metallic rapping at the screen door that startles him - he shoves the dice in the pocket of his jeans without thinking.

“I’ll bet that’s him,” he hears Rey say from the back of the Falcon.

Ben answers the door, and well, this guy is  _ not _ what he’d expected. Just by the nature of the item being sold, and the fact that it’s a good forty years past its prime, he’d expected that very stereotypical dad, maybe even with a kid in tow. Not a  _ cool dad _ , mind you, like he can admit Han Solo was now. The type of dad that wears off-white New Balance sneakers and calf-high white socks, denim shorts with a t-shirt tucked in, maybe one from a Boy Scout jamboree. There was a leather fanny pack somewhere in Ben’s imagined dad, but it’s not there either. 

Instead, Todd from the RV forums is head to toe in a bargain warehouse navy suit, slightly wrinkled, with the shiniest shoes Ben’s ever seen. He’s not Boy Scout dad, no way, he’s half used car salesman and half highway billboard personal injury lawyer.

From the beginning, something else is… off. Not just the way the guy is dressed. Shit, maybe even the smarmy-looking businessman type want to have some recreational time on the weekends. What’s weird is that as Ben gives him the tour, he asks few questions beyond the aesthetic. And what’s even more weird, Ben realizes, is that it’s been almost ten minutes and he’s made no mention of family, or children, and said nothing about his plans for where he’s going to visit. No longing for the wide open highways and backroads of America. 

And  _ that  _ is puzzling. 

His father couldn’t be in the presence of another RVer for fifteen seconds without asking where they’ve been, or the towing capacity, or if those new-fangled solar panels on the roof really do fuck all anything.

Han’s words, not Ben’s. 

The pieces don’t fall into place until Rey proudly tells him about the stereo she installed, and how they don’t have to just listen to cassettes and that there’s even a USB port - he cuts her off, complaining about how that won’t do, it’s supposed to be all original, and prop guy Marv is gonna have to rip that out first thing.  _ Something outta place like that’ll ruin the whole damn movie. _

It dawns on him that this guy buying it isn’t going to drive it, or enjoy it at all. It’s for a movie set, a background piece, and will probably be used for a week or two and then cast off to some production studio backlot for the rest of time.

At that point, Ben’s half-listening to Todd as he drones on about his plans, or the studio’s plans, director’s plans, who even knows, while they walk around the inside avoiding each other. Only half hears, though. He starts having all these visions, or memories, maybe… but not all of them are in the past. 

Many are scenes that deja vu-ed into his head when he first climbed into the Falcon with Rey a few days ago, though even  _ that _ moment seems like the distant past now, with how much things have changed. 

He sees family meals, burgers his dad grilled at a campsite and Kraft dinner with hot dog slices and hundreds of cold cut sandwiches. Him and Rey sitting at the dinette doing those puzzles that were always on the back of cereals marketed to kids, their actual cereal forgotten and soggy. 

Rey with her learner’s permit in the Eisenhower Pass, his father driving up snowy US-53 to Duluth way too fast for his mother’s liking. 

He hears the creak of the joints in the awning as it unfolds, the couple of linoleum tiles in the bathroom that always would squeak, the turn signal ticking like a metronome, the metallic rattle of the screen door slamming shut. 

So caught up in… in everything, it barely registers that he said anything out loud until the man questions him. 

“It’s not for sale,” Ben repeats. 

“What do you mean?” Through narrowed eyes Todd looks at Ben from down the hallway, and Ben sees Rey do the same from the passenger seat. 

“Dammit, the Falcon is meant for  _ recreation _ . If I’d come out here and you’d had a gaggle of annoying children and a wife who just wanted to see Little Yosemite Valley, then I’d hand the keys over to you in a heartbeat.” Ben pauses, gesturing towards the screen door for the man to exit. As he does, Rey hops out of the front seat, following them outside. His hands go to his pockets, and he pulls out the set of dice, holding them briefly before putting them back. “What it’s not, is a background piece in some shit movie you’re making.  _ I’m _ keeping it, and  _ we _ are leaving.” 

“Good luck, I bet that piece of junk doesn't even make it outta Orange County.”

“She made it all the way here from Madison, Wisconsin, and besides,” he adds, stealing a glance over his shoulder at Rey, who looks equals parts surprised and so very pleased with him.  “My co-pilot’s the best mechanic around. We’ll be just fine.”

Rey stays quiet, but he sees the smile on her face for his  _ best mechanic around _ comment. 

And then, just like that, it’s over. They lean against the side of the Falcon and Rey takes Ben’s hand, squeezing it tight, and they both wind up laughing as they watch him pulling away from the parking lot, angrily yelling into his cell phone. 

When he’s out of sight, Rey stands up on her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. “I’m proud of you, Ben.” He watches as she walks over to the rental car, and grabs their two duffels bags from the back seat, dropping them on the asphalt next to his feet when she returns. “Take those inside? I’m gonna go return this thing and see if they won’t charge me.”

He does as she asks, then goes through his own collection and starts putting everything back in place, making a mental note to call the airline as soon as possible and cancel their flights. There’s no way he’ll get a refund, but he can’t find it in himself to care. About fifteen minutes later, Rey’s back in the Falcon with a foot-long receipt in her hand and grin on her face that says, _yes, I did indeed get a full refund, thank you very much._ She gets herself settled into her seat as he reaches up, repositioning the chain of dice around the hook, then sticking the hula girl back onto her spot on the dashboard. He glances at Rey when he’s done, only to see her already looking over at him from the passenger seat, expectantly. “So, what’s the plan now?” “I dunno. You ever been to Montana?”

XxXxX

**Epilogue**

**Badlands National Park, South Dakota**

**Fourteen Years Later**

“Dad?”

Silence.

“Dad?”  _ A little bit louder this time, that’ll do it. They probably can’t hear me over that dang banjo music.  _

But still, silence. 

_ Alright, I know what I’ve gotta do. _

“Hey!” she yells. “Ben Solo!”

It works, except…

Her mom shifts in her seat up front, and turns around to look back at her. “Hannah, what is it? You don’t need to yell, but you know better than to try and get your dad’s attention like that while he’s driving.”

She mumbles out a sorry, looking back down at the tablet in her lap for a quick moment to double check what the place she found is called, and then her eyes dart right back up to her mom. “I found a place to go next. It’s only, like, a half hour away.”

She pushes some of her hair back behind her ears - it’s this dark brown that’s verging on black and matches her father’s perfectly. Both her parents had been confused when she’d asked to chop it short so she could look like Mia Wallace, and though they’d been cool and were totally find to let her cut it… they also put some annoying child restrictions on Netflix because  _ apparently  _ Pulp Fiction is not appropriate for someone her age. Which is crap, if you ask her, by the way.  _ I’m eleven, not a toddler, and I understood… most of the movie.  _

“Wall Drug?” Her dad finally says, his voice unsure. “Doesn’t sound like any sort of attraction to me.” From where she sits, she sees him shrug his shoulders and flash her mom this look - one that she’s smart enough by know to now means they’re trying to talk and not say any words. “Sounds like a Walgreens or something like that.”

“Ben,” her mother chides, that same tone of voice she’s used to. “Now you know that Wall Drug is--”

“...is nothing more than a Walgreens?”

“Are you gonna make me remind you of that trip I took you on, where I purposefully drove you to places your parents refused to take you to?”

“I would love for you to remind me of that trip, sweetheart.” There’s a gross lovey tone in her dad’s voice, and her face scrunches up on instinct.

Hannah interrupts the impending love-fest, getting her request back on track. “It is  _ not  _ a Walgreens, Dad, geez.” She holds her tablet up, even though his eyes are back on the road. “The website says that two million people visit every year.  _ Two. Million. _ It has to be cool.” No reply.  _ Quick, think of something… _ and then she remembers. “Says here they even have homemade donuts.”

Her mom inclines her head in her dad’s direction, and she watches as he exhales loudly - Hannah knows she’s won now.

“Fine, fine. But that was a cheap shot, kid. You know the Falcon will always stop for donuts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez, that update took a while, sorry about that. Thanks for everyone that's still around reading this. 
> 
> Oh, and Wall Drug, if you don't know, is a huge tourist trap store outside the Badlands in South Dakota.

**Author's Note:**

> I've googled so much about this exact RV that I'm surprised I'm not getting targeted ads on Facebook.


End file.
